THE ?FROGS' OF WAR ...missles hidden and tagged by UN weapons inspectors

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.nypost.com/commentary/72436.htm
THE ?FROGS' OF WAR

By VINCE MORRIS
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DEADLY DUO:
The two FROG missiles that U.S. soldiers discovered hidden in a residential area yesterday.
- NYP: Vince Morris

April 1, 2003 --

TWO deadly Iraqi missiles were discovered yesterday planted smack in the middle of an isolated farming community south of Al Hillah - hidden by soldiers carrying out Saddam's sinister agenda.

A Marine reconnaissance party discovered the two short-range tactical missiles - known as FROGs - after fending off enemy soldiers in a tiny community of adobe homes and sheds several miles off the main road.

That was all they found in the village. The locals had apparently fled into the countryside after the rockets were stashed there, fearing they would become U.S. bombing targets, according to a recon team member who identified himself only as "Trey."

There was no doubt about who had slipped the dangerous cache into the once-peaceful community - there was Arabic writing on both. And left alongside the rockets were two small dark blankets, the kind Iraqi soldiers carry with them.

"What Saddam's doing is putting these missiles into a built-up community so the locals are the ones to get hurt if they're targeted," said Col. John Pomfret, head of Combat Support Services Battalion 11, whose recon team uncovered the cache.

The Marines found the missiles - 15 feet long and 2 feet in diameter - sitting side by side, wrapped in a dirty green tarp, in an unmarked 40-foot trailer that was partially covered with tree branches.

Both had United Nations identification codes stamped on them - indicating they had been tagged by weapons inspectors sometime after the 1991 Gulf War.

FROGs - named for the acronym "free rocket over ground" - are not among the weapons in the Iraqi arsenal banned by the United Nations.

Although deadly, they do not have the range of the infamous Scuds. They are unguided artillery rockets capable of carrying nuclear and chemical payloads as well as high explosives - and they've been lobbed at American forces on a number of occasions recently.

The Marines consider the stashed rockets fresh evidence of Saddam's dual strategy of protecting his missiles by tucking them into unexpected places, while insuring that if they become bombing targets, innocent civilians will be killed and the United States will be blamed.

After discovering the rockets, the recon team combed the village for signs of life. No one was found. But Trey said food and clothing left behind by the villagers indicated they had just cleared out.

Iraqi forces, however, remained in the area - and they didn't make it easy for the recon unit. Trey said the team encountered stiff enemy resistance in the scrub near the missile cache.

Another Marine noted that the Iraqis keep finding new ways to attack U.S. forces. He said they're now rotating their anti-aircraft guns downward and firing them horizontally at advancing U.S. forces because they've proven ineffective against the avoidance systems of U.S. aircraft.

[philly]

Wouldn't life be so much easier and kinder if Peter Cottontail were the dictator of Iraq? Hiding colored eggs for us to hunt instead of deadly chemical and nuclear weapons. The reality of this war is that we have only skimmed the surface in the pursuit of locating Sadaam's illegal weapons. The innocence of many forever lost and the many lives lost because of an evil man and his army.

Philly