From Tony Hollick
A Response to David Guyatt’s Operation Black Dog, in Lobster 35.
All aircraft and ordnance information is from Modern Warplanes, by Doug Richardson, Salamander Books, 1982.
It would have been Saddam Hussein’s most heartfelt wish, to have the US attack Iraq with nerve gas during the 1991 Gulf War. He could then have postured as the victim of biochemical warfare, rather than being slated as the aggressor. Yet Operation Black Dog asks us to believe that the US actually obliged him, with a ‘black’ B-52 bomber strike out of Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska; and a US Navy S-3A Viking strike from a carrier in the Gulf.
The scenarios painted would have us believe that elaborate planning aimed at carrying out two ‘demonstration’ strikes, then carefully destroying all evidence that these strikes had occurred. Quite how this would prove to Saddam that the US had done them, while denying him any evidence, is left unexplained.
Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska is the Headquarters of the Strategic Planning Staff (it was here that SIOP, the Strategic Integrated Operational Plan for America’s global nuclear war-fighting capability, was developed). It’s an extraordinarily unlikely candidate for a ‘black’ B-52 strike mission base. There are many other US bases where B-52s come and go, with much less prominence, and very much less risk of accidents on take-off and landing.
We are asked to accept that a VX nerve agent was used, with a C-130 Hercules simultaneously flying out of Dhahran to obliterate any traces of nerve agent with two five ton fuel-air explosive devices. Why the B-52 didn’t just drop all three bombs in sequence is left unexplained. This is perfectly well within the capability of the B-52. Whereas the C-130 Hercules is a transport aircraft. The listed types do not include bombing configurations. The aircraft is signally unsuited for bombing missions. Are the crew supposed to roll five ton bombs out of the rear loading bay?
The Viking S-3A (why does David Guyatt always omit the hyphens?) is also a very poor choice for this sort of mission. It must be noted that the author describes the actions as speedy responses to an emergency situation, yet the aircraft used are unsuitable, and must be specially modified (often heavily modified) for the missions.
We are told that the pilots and crew were CIA staffers. Well, CIA’s field staff at that time numbered a few thousand, world-wide, for all missions. Flying missions from carriers is dangerous enough, requiring the highest skills: with nerve gas loads on board, one can well imagine the consternation of the carrier commanders when asked to make this one fly!
For more than a decade, it has been US policy to conduct military missions with military personnel. What possible advantage could there be to using civilian staff, ‘sheep-dipped’ or otherwise?
David Guyatt leaves unexplored the possible more legitimate alternatives which would ‘demonstrate’ to Saddam the unacceptability of his conduct. FAEs (Fuel-Air Explosives) can generate EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) all on their own. Pershing II strikes with conventional warheads are pretty fearsome, with a Circular Error Probable of some five metres. Even a neutron bomb would be a better choice (no evidence afterwards, either).
It beggars belief that President Bush (a former carrier pilot himself) would order this sort of hare-brained mission.
- Or that the Chiefs of Staff would permit it.
- Or that the carrier captain would permit it.
- I think someone sold David Guyatt a pup.
Tony Hollick
http://www.agora.demon.co.uk
From Rebecca Moore
Dear Friend,
We wanted to let you know about the first issue of the Jonestown report, now available electronically at the following address: http://wwwrohan.sdsu.edu/~remoore/ jonestown/jtreport.html
We wanted to let you know that we linked your publication to the report, in light of Jim Hougan’s article. Let us know if you get any hits from this.
If you have comments or would like to contribute information to the jonestown report, we would like to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Fielding McGehee
Rebecca Moore
Rebecca Moore
Department of Religious Studies
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182-8143
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~remoore
From Donovan Pedelty
While fully acknowledging the pertinence to my theme of the ‘secret state’ referred to by Raymond Challinor in his generous review of my book, The Rape of Socialism (Lobster 37) in defences of my street cred as an anarchist, I must take issue with his comment that I write ‘as if these political Peeping Toms [the intelligence and security services] of the State did not exist’.
State subversion of the rights of the governed to know ‘what is going on’ and to freely comment on it is dealt with in a chapter entitled ‘Labour’s Leviathan’, in which I offer the view that, given shortage of space to cover an immense amount of relevant material, it is more illuminating to present a couple of cases in some detail than do little more than list many. In one of those I do recount, those ‘Peeping Toms’ are very much in evidence.