Report of Iraqi MiGs Raises Questions of Possible Attack
Summary
Iraqi opposition sources have claimed that Saddam Hussein is
preparing to launch an attack on Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, using
MiG-15 and Mirage jet aircraft. The MiG-15 is an obsolete,
Korean War vintage jet, making this report highly suspect.
However, reports of Iraqi efforts to develop an "anthrax air
force" using unmanned conversions of military jets to carry
chemical and biological agents make the opposition claim worth a
second look.
Analysis
On February 1, the Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab al-Yawm cited a
"source within the Iraqi opposition" as saying that Iraq was
preparing to carry out air strikes on "military or economic
targets in Saudi Arabia in particular" using more than 15 MiG-15
and French Mirage aircraft. The source claimed that Iraq held
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait directly responsible for facilitating a
U.S. attack on five Iraqi missile batteries in and around Basra.
The source reportedly singled out U.S. forces at the Prince
Sultan airbase in al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia, as one possible target
for the retaliatory strike, "despite their knowledge that this
Saudi airbase is strongly fortified by heavy ground and air
defenses and is surrounded by U.S. anti-missile Patriot missiles
and anti-aircraft Hawk missiles." The source also reported that
at least two batteries of Scud missiles had recently been moved
to between Basra and the Rumaylah oil field.
Let us first say that this unconfirmed report is immediately
suspect, in that it comes from an anonymous and interested party.
Second, even if the report were to have some element of truth, it
could reflect nothing more than a continuation of Saddam
Hussein's recent blustery rhetoric, taken seriously by the
opposition and the foreign press. Finally, there is the almost
laughable idea that Iraq would trundle out a squadron of Korean
War vintage jets for an attack on a heavily fortified Saudi/U.S.
facility.
But before the story is dismissed out of hand, there are some
factors that should be examined. First, while current orders of
battle for Iraq indicate that it has no MiG-15s, the Iraqi air
force did count a number of the antiquated jets among its
inventory prior to Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
Inventories of Iraqi arms are unreliable in the aftermath of the
allied bombardment of Iraq and the evacuation of many Iraqi
aircraft to Iran, leaving open the possibility that some of the
older MiGs survived. It is also plausible that even those
surviving aircraft would be struck from observers' lists of Iraqi
equipment, since the MiGs are so utterly obsolete as to be
militarily worthless. Any mission carried out in a MiG-15
against foreign powers would be a suicide mission, one that even
the most devoted of Saddam's pilots would hesitate to take on.
(Incidentally, we can't say the same for North Korea, which was
reported in September 1998 as having trained some 140 "kamikaze"
pilots to fly MiG-15s and MiG-17s into South Korean targets
should war break out on the Korean peninsula.)
But what if a pilot was unnecessary? On January 6, Jane's
Defense Weekly cited the UK Ministry of Defence as reporting that
Iraq was engaged in converting some of its Czech-built L-29 jet
trainers at the Tallil airbase into unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAV) for use in delivering chemical or biological warfare
agents. Jane's cited UK Secretary of State for Defence George
Robertson as saying Iraq was close to developing an "anthrax air
force," including converted Polish M-18 Dromader agricultural
crop dusters as well as the L-29s. Converting the MiG-15 to
essentially a cruise missile would not be entirely unprecedented.
The Soviet SSC-2b Samlet coastal defense cruise missile was
derived from the MiG-15.
In addition to the reported movement of Scuds, and now this talk
of MiGs poised to attack Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, on February 2
U.S. jets dropped precision guided bombs on a battery of Iraqi
CSSC-3 coastal defense missiles. The missiles had been recently
deployed to the al-Faw peninsula at the mouth of the Shatt al-
Arab waterway. From there they potentially threatened U.S. naval
vessels and commercial shipping off the coast of Kuwait, the
justification given for the U.S. attack on them, but they were
also within range of downtown Kuwait City. Which brings us to
the question of targeting.
If Saddam is lining up cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and
converted jets for an attack, and assuming he'd actually push the
button, then who is the target? His recent rhetoric would
suggest Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, however bombarding fellow Arab
nations would destroy whatever shred of sympathy he enjoys as the
martyr to American imperialism, particularly if he were to
maximize the impact of the strikes through the use of chemical or
biological weapons. Israel is always a potential target, but not
from Basra or al-Faw. But Prince Sultan airbase, which could be
decried as a den of infidels in the land of Mecca and Medina,
would fall within the range of Iraq's Al-Hussein and Al-Abbas
Scud missile variants and the "anthrax air force." Whether the
notoriously inaccurate Iraqi missiles or the potential new UAVs
could find their target, let alone penetrate its defenses, is
still open to question.
Returning to our original caveat, this report of Iraqi MiGs is
unconfirmed and comes from an anonymous interested party.
Nevertheless, information from the Iraqi opposition has carried
rich nuggets of truth in the past. And considering Iraq's
reported UAV development efforts, the fact that this report
concerns obsolete aircraft is still no reason to immediately
write it off as fiction. As always, we welcome any additional
supportive or contradictory information our readers may be able
to provide.
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