[A-List] US imperialism: Iraq, Yugoslavia

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

US aims to intercept defence tips from Serbs to Saddam
IAN BRUCE
The Herald, 3 December 2002

A group of American military experts is in Yugoslavia to determine how much
technical advice Slobodan Milosevic's regime supplied to Iraq to help its
air defences shoot down US jets in any future campaign to topple Saddam
Hussein.

The Serbs are known to have used "passive tracking" techniques during the
1999 Kosovo conflict to narrow down the location of a supposedly "invisible"
F117 Nighthawk stealth fighter and bring it down west of Belgrade, the first
of the revolutionary radar-evading aircraft lost in combat.

They also used microwave ovens, which give off the same radiation signature
as tank engines, to decoy Nato bombing missions. Only 14 tanks and a handful
of armoured vehicles were confirmed destroyed in three months of aerial
attack, as opposed to allied claims that more than 300 had been struck.

Despite Nato's total air supremacy, its bombers never succeeded in knocking
out Serb air defences, and its pilots came under missile attack above their
15,000ft "safety altitude" until the war ended.

The Belgrade government confirmed yesterday that US officers were
interviewing serving and former members of the Yugoslav air force and
seeking access to intelligence files on air defence tactics.

General Wesley Clark, who commanded alliance forces in Kosovo, said: "The
Serbs employed cunning and improvisation to overcome technological
inferiority . . . It remains a matter of legitimate and serious concern that
their counter-air techniques were passed to the Iraqis. It could have lethal
consequences for the crews who might soon be risking their lives over
Baghdad and other targets."

Iraqi intelligence and air force officers were invited to Yugoslavia after
the conflict and toured command centres and missile defence sites.

Yugoslav technicians are also understood to have helped upgrade Iraq's
buried fibre-optic communications network to enable missile crews to launch
with accuracy against airborne intruders without using ground guidance
radars.

The emissions from standard target-acquisition radars give away their
position and invite destruction by homing weapons such as the radar
beam-riding Harm missile used by US and British air forces.

Renegade Serbs are also reported to be fitting Iraq's ageing SAM-3
high-altitude missiles with rocket boosters to give them added range and
speed which could pose a serious danger to B1 Lancer and B2 Spirit stealth
bombers and U2 spy planes.

Allied pilots patrolling the northern and southern "no-fly" zones over Iraq
report more aggressive activity by Iraqi gunners and missile batteries.

An RAF source said: "There is no doubt that Serbs passed on invaluable
lessons to the Iraqis. We also suspect that Saddam's air defence network is
keeping much of its powder dry in respect of absorbing those lessons and
turning them into a viable threat. It is likely that the first practical
demonstration of their new skills and technological tricks will come only
when the first waves of allied aircraft are committed to the skies over
Baghdad and other key targets if war comes next year.

"One fact that should not be forgotten, however, is that everyone learned
lessons over Kosovo and Serbia. Nato pilots have been well briefed and
trained to be alert for techniques which surprised us last time."