That is good advice. I get tired of seeing Bush and Rove described like guys sitting in underground bunkers petting their white kitties as they plot the destruction of the world, without the realization setting in that the guy petting the kitty always loses.

[[ob worried tongue-cluck]] Whether they lose or win may depend on all of us.[[/owtc]] I can't see that media manipulation and Big Lie strategies are preordained to either success or failure.

The headline here led me to thoughts in a different direction, to the recent presidential visit to Iraq on Thanksgiving.

There were lots of unusual items in that report that no one appears to have commented on.

1) Bush left secretly, not even informing his secret service detail or his parents of his plans.

a) How efficient is the al Qaeda and/or Iraqi intelligence unit that they could conceivable have sources inside the President's own Secret Service detail, or be able to get SIGINT out of his own family?

2) Air Force One flew across lights out, under a false IFF.

b) What sort of weapons systems/capability does al Qaeda/Iraq have that they could conceivably target Air Force One in mid-Atlantic?

This all brings us around to the last question: How much control do we have on the ground in Iraq that Bush's arrival/departure had to be shrouded in such total secrecy? Could the insurgency, given twenty-four hours notice, bring down any aircraft they wanted? Could they, given twelve hours notice, have put an effective combat force into the middle of a US base? Could they, given four hours notice, have put a sniper with a clear line of sight in range of Bush in the middle of thousands of combat troopers? What kind of capabilities do those guys have?

Is the Bush administration that much in awe of the Iraqi insurrectionists, or is there some other explanation?

Is the Bush administration that much in awe of the Iraqi insurrectionists, or is there some other explanation?

Either (a) they're really paranoid or (b) they've been watching too many movies, so that they felt they had to do it in the coolest, most Hollywood fashion possible.

My thoughts on yesterday's "presidential" trip to Pittsburgh were even more cynical, if possible: that there W was, in the Steel City in front of a lot of steel-industry executives, making jokes about the Steelers and everything, with the steel tariffs issue on everyone's mind. So: What if he just came to town to grab as many campaign bucks as possible, and then next week betrays the whole steel industry and all the steelmakers in the area on the tariffs thing? I fully suspect it will happen. And yes, he will lose votes around here on it.

It's the Bush Photo-Op Curse! Not even the lobbyists are immune.

Jim -

I don't think this lot are capable of doing much in the way of careful analysis.

Option a) -- Dubya really didn't want to go, and that was the level of security for that trip which adequately reassured him.

Option b) -- they are really, really worried about somebody fragging the President.

Option c) -- they're setting the level of security on the basis of the amount of damage they think they're risking, rather than the likelyhood of that damage.

I'm inclined to go for c), myself; that kind of skew has the right feel, especially if one throws in the idea that they're at least as worried about PR damage as they are about material damage.

This all brings us around to the last question: How much control do we have on the ground in Iraq that Bush's arrival/departure had to be shrouded in such total secrecy? Could the insurgency, given twenty-four hours notice, bring down any aircraft they wanted? Could they, given twelve hours notice, have put an effective combat force into the middle of a US base? Could they, given four hours notice, have put a sniper with a clear line of sight in range of Bush in the middle of thousands of combat troopers? What kind of capabilities do those guys have?"

James B MacDonald

Being, I suppose, as close to an expert on the subject as we have:

1: The painful truth of the matter is that with obsolete tech (passive heat seeking missiles, a la the SA-7 Grail) if they can get to within about 6,000 feet of slant range, there isn't a jumbo-jet in the world can survive. It just takes one to make her pancake on final, and there is nothing (save the visual signature) to warn the crew to drop flares.

2: The invasion of Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) would take more than twelve hours, and a whole lot more in the way of planning and manpower than the hostiles seem to have. It would take a couple thousand troops, in a co-ordinated attack, and they would get chopped to pieces.

3: The sniper would have to be really good, using a .50 Browning for cartridge, and a Barrett, or something like it for platform, and be able to make the shot at the 3,000m range that is the max effective for the weapon. If someone were to make such a shot, I might be convinced of miraculous intervention.

Point of information, a sniper doesn't care how many people are around the target, in his range, he can thread a needle with a bullet.

Terry K.

In the Usenet tradition of disagreeing just to be polite - Might in the case of this particular 747-200 usefully distinguish military IFF - and what it takes to query it from the civil transponder and who and what it takes to query it. That is I rather suppose identification friend or foe would identify as friend rather than falsely identify as foe? I may be wrong.

Notice also the subsequent discussion - in the foreign press if you will - discussing just where in the flight path separation falls to values that might permit visual distinction between again this airplane and any other airborne command post; I don't understand it was the middle of the Atlantic but rather closer to very much traffic controlled space in Europe.

I think that the super-hyper-security thing is nothing more than the movie that the Bush Whitehouse has playing in its head. This level of security is dramatically necessary for the story that they've been telling themselves.

I remember being boggled at the Inauguration Parade at what appeared to be endless SUVs of security personnel. Black SUVs with blacked out windows, one after the other after the other, then some ambulances, then some more SUVs, then a bus or two, also with heavily tinted windows -- it seemed to go on forever. The parade ran damn late, too. How many of those vehicles were security personnel? I don't know, but what else were they likely to be? Anybody else been to an inauguration that can compare notes?

These guys like to play spies. Cheney at an undisclosed location, Bush scuttling around the country in Airforce One on 9/11, all very dramatic. I also suspect that they distrust anyone who isn't "theirs." That would include the Secret Service and any other institution or bureacracy that they haven't been able to completely overhaul and remake. They believe that the government itself is their enemy. Great way to run a country, eh?

I don't think they're afraid. I wish they were. I think they're delusional.

Considering the wake of a 747-200 it seems unwise/unlikely to mislead people in controlled air space.

Be curious what an SA-7 would have done to the Gimli glider?

Terry -- I'm curious about the statement that the SA-7 would ]certainly[ bring down a 747 from a distance of 6000 feet. I got the impression that the air freighter that recently landed with one wing in flames was at least that close to the people who shot at it; the Newsweek rep who'd gotten an interview with the people responsible (not realizing that they were going to give a demonstration) said there were two shots, one of which missed entirely. Or is there a level of training necessary for a guaranteed hit?

Most of the attempts to describe Bush's mental state seem plausible. The one thing they omit is that he is the world's most massive example of the Peter Principle; he's so far beyond his level of competence (at governing, not at posing) that he reacts with massive denial to the occasional hints at the reality of his situation.

Jim,

1) Bush left secretly, not even informing his secret service detail or his parents of his plans.

a) How efficient is the al Qaeda and/or Iraqi intelligence unit that they could conceivable have sources inside the President's own Secret Service detail, or be able to get SIGINT out of his own family?

With 1, I can think of several plausible explanations:

Don't want to worry mom/Be smothered with motherly worries and advice.

Don't want to tell dad/Be lectured about what HE did when HE was president.

Want to annoy Secret Service. If you watch Bush, you know he is a man who gains incredible pleasure from smirking. Besides which, as I understand, Barbara Bush has incredible pull with the Secret Service, due to baking them cookies for years, and if anyone could get a secret out of them, she could.

As for the question of Al Quaida/Iraqi intelligence, I'd say dollars to donuts SOMEONE has managed to sneak a bug into Bush's ranch. And there are many countries/organizations aside from Al Quaida/Iraq who would dearly love to see Bush blown up, and if all it takes is an anonymous phone tip....

Operation Exploding Turkey could indeed have become a reality. Or at least had a better shot at it.

"As for the question of Al Qaeda/Iraqi intelligence, I'd say dollars to donuts SOMEONE has managed to sneak a bug into Bush's ranch."

I think this is pretty unlikely. Honestly, despite what you may read in Victor Davis Hanson columns, these people are not exceptionally competent, nor do they have superhuman powers.

I'm sure that were we gifted with sudden omniscience, we'd be stunned to discover the leaks and flaws in everybody's security, but I'd still bet against the dingbats of Al Qaeda successfully bugging the POTUS. Even this POTUS.

I'd say dollars to donuts SOMEONE has managed to sneak a bug into Bush's ranch.

Been to Krispy Kreme franchise lately? Nowadays, when you bet dollars against donuts, you're pretty much laying even odds. In fact, if the donuts are fancies, you're taking odds with such a bet, not laying them.

(This has been a George Orwell Memorial Obsolete Metaphor Moment.)

I see Alan is taking up the cudgels again.

Okay. Maybe not al Qaeda. Want to contemplate the odds that somebody's managed to bug them?

The hard part with a bug is information retreval; either someone has to pick it up and carry it out, with the detection risks that involves, or you have to transmit (and be detected, these days, if it's some place the Secret Service thinks they're protecting the POTUS in), or you have to come up with a way to hide it in something that an innocent third party will carry in, carry out, and return to your control.

That last one is difficult to arrange, with anything that is going to be near significant conversations. The first one is what paranoiac background checks are designed to prevent. I don't think it's really all that straightforward. The Secret Service guys have to have at least a little clue.

I thought that was my point. Not that Al Quaida or Iraq could manage to bug the ranch, but China, Russia or most likely Saudi Arabia (all those celebrated visits by saudi princes) would have at least TRIED to bug the ranch, and the odds that not everyone in Saudi Intelligence is a member of the George W. Bush fanclub are pretty good. More than that, I'd say it's a certainty that Saudi intelligence knows of folk who could pass on the word to Al Quaida or former Iraqi bigwigs who'd be willing to risk a rocket launcher and a goat cart for a chance to take out Bush.

And dollars/donuts, even odds are still not anything to bet your life on if you don't have to.

With a couple of SA-7s hitting a plane, I'd give good (really good) odds that impact on final, when she's slow, has lots of drag, and minimal time/distance to recover, would be all she wrote.

Esp. if the shooter makes an approach, rather than a chasing shot. It is possible (even probable) AF-1 has active detection, as a means of defending against passive seekers (like the SA-7) but with a little effort (timed shots) flares can be exhausted.

The thing about the 6,000 meter range of a weapon like the SA-7/Stinger/SA-13 is the maximum distance. I don't know what the altitude was of the case you refer to. I will wager it was climbing at impact.

Terry K.

Quote:"The DHL/EAT crew headed the aircraft back to Baghdad International after it was hit at 8,000 ft. on climbout from the airport. ....Takeoff configuration is slats extended with zero flap, and that is maintained in a 160-170-kt. climb to 10,000 ft. ....The flight was still in this low-speed climb when it was hit.....Damage, presumably from the missile blast, is concentrated at the left trailing edge along the outboard flap, between the engine and the outboard aileron. The outer half of the outboard flap is missing, and the outboard flap track is dangling from the bottom of the wing. About 10 ft. of the rear spar is broken open or missing, and fire-damaged ribs are visible inside the outboard structural fuel tank.....using engine thrust for control, and was surprised to find it worked rather well.....though the source said touchdown was around 180 kt. "Having the trim set right when they were hit saved them," the source said."Aviation Week & Space Technology 12/08/03
author: David Hughes
author: Michael A. Dornheim

Yep, not an impact on landing. The altitude implies an SA-9, or a Stinger. The advantage large jets have (esp. if they are securely airborne) is that shoulder launched surface-to-air missiles are meant to take out a, relatively, smaller class of plane.

Terry K.

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