Oh-oh... Why haven't I seen this thing about Iraqi MiGs being buried?

[TlalocW]

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/sandplanes.asp

What's this about? It's from 2003, and some republican just sent it to me with basically a "Ha-ha! Gotcha!" message. Snopes lists it as true.

TlalocW

[LittleApple81]

Oh, god!!! Try flying one of those!!!! sand everywhere. That is a plane

cemetery, just like the USA has all over the desert with all equipment that cannot be used for one reason or another. Even BushCo didn't dare use that as proof of any crap!!!!!

[fob]

27. Fly them? They could affix chemical and biological agents to them

and fling them towards the US in UNDER 45 minutes!!****

* - Dramatization purposes only
* - They have no ACTUAL chem/bio agents but perhaps gave thought to them at various times throughout their day
* - They also did not have a launching mechanism, but plans were discovered for a giant wooden horse that was hollowed out and could potentially hold 3 or 4 planes. A gift card with bush*s name on it was found affixed to it's nose and a partially filled out fedex tag with a DC address nearby.
* - It took days to uncover planes, 45 minutes was used to sex-up my reply

[mr_hat]

1. MiG = WMD? Not. What's gotcha about it?

[ClassWarrior]

2. Yeah, even Condescending Rice says we could never imagine...

...using planes as weapons.

[movonne]

3. I saw some of these about a month ago at the coffee house I go

to in the morning. The wing-nuts that come in there left them on the table... But I have a question: are planes WMD's???

[Wickerman]

4. Rummy has a handle on it

"But, as we all know," he added, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

:eyes:

[htuttle]

5. Do you know what happened to the planes they DIDN'T bury long ago?

Kablam! They were blown up by the US. BTW, I heard about this when it came out.

But, I'm trying to understand the Republican thought process here:

They find a buried MiG, and thus take that as proof that Bush was right in that Iraq has thousands of gallons of Sarin, hundreds of tons of Anthrax, and all the rest of that laundry list Powell read off at the UN?

Huh. I still don't follow...

Answers that require the use of the phrase 'could have, might have' are still not acceptable reasons to go to war.

[ClassWarrior]

6. So does this mean we went to war because Iraq had airplanes?

Or because they were developing an airplane program?

Just wondering.

[Richardo]

10. "Airplane-related program activities" is the proper term, I think

:)

[GregW]

7. Whatever happened to all the Iraqi planes that flew to Iran ...

... during Gulf War I? Did they get to keep 'em?

[htuttle]

9. Yes, Iran kept them

They said, "Thanks for the jet planes, Saddam!" Seriously.

Thing is, they were kind of old and ratty, so I think they were mostly used for parts. I don't think any of them were refurbished and put into service in Iran.

[Caution]

8. anyone who uses this as evidence of a threat has a screw loose

Saddam had some migs? there's a shock. he was the leader of a sovereign country and there was nothing stating he couldn't defend his country, hell those planes just show he had the capability to challenge the no-fly zone but chose not to. The fact that they were friggin buried in sand rather than being used in defense of a damned invasion shows a little bit about how much confidence hussein had in these planes.

[underpants]

14. It's actually further proof that Iraq posed no threat

Aside from WMD that didn't exist they had no conventional military to threaten their neighbors. The Iraqi Air Force, when in service, was not very good-apparently the Iranian air defense tore them apart regularly during the Iran-Iraq War.

Their armor units had been canabalized due to years of no parts.

No threat. So they didn't tell everyone that they didn't have any WMD -as Hans Blix said "Just because you have a 'beware of dog' sign it doesn't mean you have a dog".

[fob]

19. Sovereign? What does that mean?

[Caution]

21. Apparently it means

"Nation Without Massive Oil Reserves"

[MichiganVote]

11. This is a plane, not a WMD. So what?

[Warpy]

12. A few things are wrong with using this story

First, MIGs were not on any list of banned weaponry that I know about. The Iraqis were just prevented from flying them over Kurdish and Shi'ite areas.

Second, do you have any idea what being buried does to an aircraft? There is no way those things could have been dug up and flown without months of dismantling and cleaning.

Third, due to the above two things, doesn't it strike you as a little odd that functional aircraft would have been buried?

[sangh0]

13. So who's "less intelligent"?

The Repuke who claims MIG's are a WMD, or the Dem who doesn't disagree with such foolishness.

[jpak]

15. This is old old old news

In the run up to Desert Storm, the Iraqi military buried whole tank formations in the sand to prevent their destruction by Coalition aircraft.

They built extensive bunker systems to protect infantry and munitions as well.

Did it work?

Nope.

And neither do the aircraft buried in these pictures.

More proof that wing nuts live in an alternative universe....

[critchmj]

This is over a year old from when they first went into Iraq

and started looking for WMD. The planes had been buried since Desert Storm. It was noted briefly in the media, but when it turned out that they were not WMD but leftovers from Desert Storm, the story was dropped. I remember it.

The freepers got ahold of this story and won't let go. I think the premise is that if they buried these planes, then they could have buried WMD so that it will take us years to find them ... though they did find these planes within a couple of months of the occupation. It's freeper hyperbole.

[Cocoa]

16. if you haven't heard about this

then you haven't heard Rummy answer questions about WMD. This is his favorite answer, that the WMDs could be buried anywhere, just like the Migs.

[DrWho]

17. ...

Mig Buried in Sand

This has been out for well over a month, and I'll bet you haven't seen anything about it in the liberal news media.

No WMD’s, huh? Stand by! ---------


Ummm, why didn't Faux News report it????

[LittleApple81]

18. Don't understand your post. Those planes have been in their graves

for a long time and metioned a long time ago. So your point is?

[DrWho]

25. ...

That was taken from the site.

My comment was the faux news portion.

[troublemaker]

20. Who cares?

There's no law against owning planes.

[Vickers]

22. They can launch an attack in 45 minutes with them things?

Nice try.

[tandot]

23. "Ha-ha! Gotcha!" ??? I don't know if their stupidity even warrants a

response.

They've found planes buried in the sand. Was this was the imminent threat Bush was talking about in his SOTU?

Bush: "My fellow citizens, 'credible' intelligence sources report that Iraq has dozens of air planes buried in the sand. We also have spotted people with shovels. We assume they are planning to dig them out. If the start digging now, they could be ready to attack us in...uhhhmm...about 10 years...This is an immediate threat and we better go over there and kill 'em all..."

[Minstrel Boy]

24. breaking news for a bizarro world

When was it that wrong became right, and down, up?

I remember a more sensible world than this. This one has the logic of a nightmare.

[renegade000]

31. yes those buried planes and WMD

imminent threat...obviously.

they could have been dug up and readied for operation in 45 minutes :crazy:

[benburch]

26. Because it is no longer an aircraft.

It would take hundreds of thousands of dollars in parts and a total rebuild before any of those would ever fly again.

They are no more weapons than any of the blasted tanks that litter the Iraqi landscape.

However, it would make a good display piece in a park.

[0007]

28. This will never fly!

[DaveFL99]

29. But the fact that they had all that sand

proves they were trying to hide something.

[TlalocW]

30. Thanks, guys. I jumped the gun.

I went to Snopes fully expecting it to be listed as "false," and when it wasn't I didn't read the - admittedly paltry amount of information they had about it. The email I got had something about how this was recent, and there was a plane buried that no one had seen before, etc., and I panicked. Normally I'm pretty good at shutting stuff like this down but not this time.

I summarized a lot of your points though and emailed him back.

Thanks again.

TlalocW

[Ducks In A Row]

32. I hear they had statues of planes too

and they were really dangerous.



still no wmds. still not able to attack in 45 mins. still no mobile labs.

nothing

tell your friend to get medical help because that's the only thing that can help anyone so detached from reality.

[SoCalDem]

33. It's an OLD OLD OLD story

soon after the "invasion", they found a bunch olf old rusted planes buried in the sand..

So much for the Iraqi Air Force..

I would assume that Saddam, in his infinite wisdom, buried them so that the pilots monitoring the no-fly zone, would not find a reason to blow them up..

A buried airforce is not a very big "asset"..

Freeps would want front page headlines every time a can of drano is found :eyes:

[Realityhack]

34. Its a streach from this to Ha Ha - Gotcha!

Unless you sliped up and said something silly this is a far cry from a gotcha moment.

It would apear that the theory is if Saddam buried planes he must have also buried his chemical and biological weapons.
Or that these planes would be equiped with NBC weapons.

This theory is retarded on many levels.

The story is over a year old posibly over 2 (2003 date) so clearly no WMD were found at this site.

This site was located. If their were NBC weapons that were intended to be recoverd it is highly unlikely that we would not have found at least SOME of them by now. No matter how well buried.

Logicaly the Iraqis would have dispursed such weapons to a number of difrent sites to avoid the posiblility of them all being destroyed at once.

Further they would have had to bury them in small quantities or our satalites, spy planes, etc would pick them up.

The more locations they are at the more chance of us discovering at least one of the locations now that we are not only poking around the country but torturing former Iraqi army personell looking for these mutitions.

Also it should be noted that a number of people would have to know about this and or there would have to be extensive documentation if the stores were ever to be recovered.

Unless you said it was imposible to bury things in sand there is no Gotcha. No NBC weapons have been found in Iraq. The only WMD are ours.

RH

[TlalocW]

35. I did more research

And found that Australian troops actually did find a Firebat or whatever months before along with several tons of explosives, but I argued that since the Bush administration didn't hold these up as weapons of mass destruction when they were found then he has nothing.

Thanks again guys.

TlalocW

[OilemFirchen]

36. I see their point

If they have planes that can fly in the sand, what other diabolical technology could they unleash?

Don't forget, they've also got those lamp thingies that you rub and shazam shit with.

[Swede]

37. Lots of countries have an air force.

Most have jets that aren't even buried in the sand. Let's not invade those too.