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Missiles strayed turkey saudi { March 30 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49022-2003Mar29.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49022-2003Mar29.html
Pentagon Says Some Missiles Strayed
Saudi, Turkish Routes Shut Down
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 30, 2003; Page A23
At least a half-dozen cruise missiles have gone badly astray in the Iraqi war, prompting both Saudi Arabia and Turkey to shut down U.S. firing lanes and leading to new concerns that two devastating blasts in Baghdad last week might have resulted from American errors.
Maj. Gen Stanley A. McChrystal said yesterday that "about seven" Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles fired from Navy ships in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean have fallen short of their targets since Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
At the request of the Saudi government, the military yesterday suspended cruise missile launches over some routes passing through the desert kingdom. U.S. Central Command officials in Doha, Qatar, said the request would leave open some firing lanes over Saudi Arabia, but Pentagon officials said Saudi airspace is effectively closed to cruise missiles.
That suspension follows a decision by Turkey to halt cruise missile flights over its territory. U.S. and Turkish defense officials said three missiles had landed in Turkey by Friday, when the Turkish government withdrew the overflight rights. Manned U.S. aircraft are still allowed to fly through Turkish airspace.
After initial strenuous denials of responsibility, a Pentagon official said yesterday that an explosion on Wednesday in the Shaab district of Baghdad may have been caused by a cruise missile. Iraqi authorities said the strike in a working-class neighborhood of car-repair shops and small restaurants killed at least 14 people.
Pentagon officials protested in the immediate aftermath of that explosion that no bombs or missiles had been dropped on targets anywhere near the area, and they suggested that the explosion could have been caused by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile that had missed its mark and plunged back to earth.
That still could turn out to be the case, a defense official cautioned yesterday . The official said those initial statements were issued because a B-52 bomber that had intended to strike an antiaircraft weapon near the site of the explosion returned to base without dropping the bomb meant for that target. But new information has emerged that at least one cruise missile was also in the area, the official said, although it is still not clear whether the missile was responsible for the devastation.
"We'll only find out when we take Baghdad," another Pentagon official said. "And we may never know, even after the war."
Pentagon officials continued to decline to comment on the second marketplace explosion, a powerful blast on Friday in the Baghdad suburb of Shuala. Officials said they will investigate the incident, which, the Iraqi government has said, left 58 dead.
McChrystal told reporters there is no indication of a serious technical problem with the sea-launched cruise missiles. More than 675 have been launched since the beginning of the war, he said. The failure rate at this point is about 1 percent, and in most instances, the errant missiles did not explode. The warhead on a Tomahawk is not supposed to activate until it nears its target.
One Pentagon official said that with a weapon system as sophisticated as a precision-guided cruise missile, a failure rate of 5 percent would be considered "very good." An investigation will try to determine if the missiles that fell in Turkey and Saudi Arabia all suffered a similar malfunction.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr. said in Doha that Central Command will ask Saudi Arabia for permission to resume the use of its airspace after the review is completed.
McChrystal and Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said the suspension of the flights over Saudi Arabia and Turkey should not be militarily significant, but one official was not so sanguine. The official said Saudi Arabia and Turkey have effectively shut down Tomahawk operations in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, leaving open only a narrow corridor over Kuwait.
The official said he expects Central Command to order the half-dozen or so Tomahawk-firing ships in the Red Sea to steam for the Persian Gulf as early as today. The four cruise missile "shooters" in the Mediterranean will have to stay to provide protection and search-and-rescue capacity for the two aircraft carriers there, the official said.
Regardless of the military cost, a defense official acknowledged, the errant missiles have created a nasty public relations problem for the war effort. If a Tomahawk is proven to be responsible for the Shaab blast, television networks around the world could be expected to juxtapose footage of maimed and dead civilians with the initial denials.
Nobody in Turkey or Saudi Arabia has been reported injured or killed by errant missiles. But in eastern Turkey yesterday, scores of Turkish villagers swarmed around four vehicles carrying U.S. soldiers who were trying to recover pieces of a cruise missile, the Anatolian news agency reported. The villagers pelted the soldiers with eggs and stones, shouting antiwar slogans and breaking windows.
Correspondent Alan Sipress in Doha, Qatar, contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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