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Ear to the Ground

Congressmen’s Plane Dodges Fire in Iraq

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Posted on Aug 31, 2007

Three U.S. senators and a member of the House got a taste of life in the combat zone when their military cargo plane came under attack by rocket-propelled grenades as they left Baghdad en route to Jordan on Thursday night.


AP via Yahoo News:

“It was a scary moment,” said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who said he had just taken off his body armor when he saw a bright flash outside the window. “Our pilots were terrific. ... They banked in one direction and then banked the other direction, and they set off the flares.”

Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., as well as Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., were also on the plane.

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By purplewolf, September 2, 2007 at 3:08 pm #

Gee.they missed.Better luck next time.

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By Enemy of State, September 1, 2007 at 2:51 pm #

Cyrena, they probably also have limited numbers of small rockets. In Gaza they make small inaccurate rockets in basements. These things only occasionally cause casualties, but almost always are able to draw Israeli retaliation.

  So we have RPGs, mortars, and perhaps occasionally some small crude rockets. Most of the explosives for IEDs come from old mortars and artillery shells.

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By THOMAS BILLIS, September 1, 2007 at 7:07 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

What heroes.My reading of RPGs is that they are good at a short distance and if used at something airborne it is usually a heliocopter because it hovers at low altitudes.I have read the plane was at 6000 ft which would make the RPG ineffective.If somebody more knowledgeable than myself could expand and let me know if I am correct.

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By cyrena, September 1, 2007 at 12:47 am #

98000 by EOS

Cyrena: Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), are the successors to the WWII bazookas. They are the single shot cylindrical warhead on a stick seen all over Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia..

EOS,

THANK YOU!! It was obviously this more literal description that I needed, to visualize what we’re talking about here, when they say Rocket Propelled Grenades. Describing them in these terms makes me understand what they actually are. In my mind, I was thinking rockets like the ones that Hezbollah has been accused of using so often, and I just didn’t think that the “insurgents” had managed to get their hands on anything like that, because nearly all of that kind of stuff that SADDAM had, was all dilapidated.

So thanks. Now I know what we’re talking about. The new bazooka’s. Never has there been a shortage of weapons in the history of mankind. There’s no arugument though, that at this point in time, we are THE largest manufacturer/provider/seller/peddler/dealer of arms on the planet.

That should keep the chaos going indefinitely. That appears to have been the plan all along. At least I’m inclined to agree with Louise on that. Hard to see it any other way unless one is committed to denial.

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By Louise, August 31, 2007 at 11:48 pm #

Nothing inexplicable about Rummy ordering stuff be left. Huge cashes of weapons under UN Seal were opened by our advancing troops ... looked at, no doubt hunting for the elusive WMD, then left behind. Seal broken, lock broken and damn little record of any inventory being taken.

But I don’t blame the troops who follow orders. I blame a semi-senile fool who followed orders from a semi-literate fool who followed orders from a totally insane VP!

Which all makes as much sense as ignoring the looting and staging the welcome and killing women and children and storming mosques. All done in our name. All done to ratchet up and guarantee ongoing chaos! Which is what one should expect when the insane lead the illiterate and senile, right?

After all, chaos was the plan. Stuff that kills and maims contributes mightily to chaos.

That being said, what I want to know is ...
How come these three repugnant repubs and one dim dem had body amour?

That has NEVER been a priority they’ve extended to the troops!

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By Enemy of State, August 31, 2007 at 9:59 pm #

Cyrena: Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), are the successors to the WWII bazookas. They are the single shot cylindrical warhead on a stick seen all over Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia etc.. Saddam left piles of weapons all over Iraq. Disposal of these things should have been a high priority right after we took over the place. But inexplicably, we did very little about them at the time.

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By QuyTran, August 31, 2007 at 9:56 pm #

Don’t worry, just “friendly fires” !

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By DennisD, August 31, 2007 at 9:48 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I’m sure it’ll be an exciting story for our four “brave” “representatives” to tell to the big contributors at their next fund raiser. I surprised Mel had body armor on, wasn’t the mission accomplished in Iraq years ago?

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By cyrena, August 31, 2007 at 7:52 pm #

Scurvybro,

Thanks. I remember this now, and that’s what makes the most sense. Four plus years later, the things are probably spread all over the country. All of these things that they didn’t have before.

I wonder if any of the Congressional tourists found even the slightest irony or wisdom in the thought that they were being shot at by folks for whom they had supplied the weapons?

Probably not.

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By scurvybro, August 31, 2007 at 6:58 pm #

I’m guessing that the rocket-propelled grenades were part of the hundreds of thousands of tons of munitions that our military left unprotected after our invasion in 2003. Experts have estimated that these items will allow insurgents to wage suicide bombings and other attacks for the next few centuries.

Other than that, I have no clue.

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By cyrena, August 31, 2007 at 5:50 pm #

I still don’t get where the “ROCKETS” came from, to propel the grenades.

WHO, on the ground, (the insurgents?) has managed to gain access to “rockets”, and how the hell did they get ‘em?

I posted these questions before, but…they never showed-up. I still think they are reasonable questions. WHO is shooting -“rocket”- propelled ANYTHING at our aircraft? Guns, I can see…the insurgents have certainly managed to collect those kinds of weapons, since we’ve supplied them all with at least one rifle per household, more for larger families.

But, I still don’t get where the rockets came from.

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By Sam Thornton, August 31, 2007 at 5:11 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Can hardly wait until the fab foursome tells us how well Teh Surge is going and how we need just three or six more months for all to be perfectly swell.

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