Re: no gun ri

[<AMPSOne@aol.com>]

Dan,

There's a right way and a wrong way to do things. Stories which smell a bit around the edges usually are completely untrustworthy, and that works both ways. 

Case in point: a few years back two F-15 pilots shot down a pair of UH-60s being used in the Northern No-Fly zone of Iraq. While it was clearly a friendly fire incident, the USAF claimed right out the pilots had visually inspected the suspect aircraft and fired on good targets (Mi-24s). Then they changed the story that the IFF wasn't working (later noting that it was SOP to turn if off when inside the zone to prevent giving the Iraqis an even better picture of your location). Then it was blaming a mission controller on an AWACS and trying to court-martial some poor captain. 

The real answer was that they blew off the visual ID as they were afraid of MANPADS and simply fired BVR. After a lot of Congressional pressure the USAF finally took action against the LTC and CPT flying the Eagles. 

That's an example where the story stinks and pressure eventually gets you close enough to the truth to get a reasonable answer.

But the No Gun Ri stories right now stink the other way, and as such haven't shown much credibility so far.

Cookie Sewell
AMPS