PRESIDENT BUSH had plans to lure Saddam Hussein into war by flying an aircraft over Iraq painted in UN colours in the hope he would shoot it down, a book reveals.Mr Bush told Tony Blair of the extraordinary plan during a meeting in the White House on January 31, 2003, six weeks before the war started, according to an updated version of Lawless World by Philippe Sands, a human rights lawyer. He says the President made it clear that he had already decided to go to war, despite still pressing for a UN resolution.
“The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach,” the book reports Mr Bush telling Mr Blair at the meeting.
American presidents! Tired of comparisons between you and Hitler! Then don't propose starting a war with a rerun of the Gleiwitz incident!
Frankly, considering that the Iraqi air defence system never managed to shoot a plane down during the 12-year no-fly zone episode, they would have to have notified the Iraqis first, got their intelligence to locate an tribal wedding party out in the desert, and flown in circles very slowly at under a thousand feet; perhaps they could have got Bush to be the pilot.
Posted by: dan | February 03, 2006 at 04:26 PM
Well, Dan, cool as the U-2 undoubtedly is, the Russians managed to twat one with an SA-2, which is about as advanced as Iraqi air defence got in 2003. Presumably they have all kinds of stealthy gimmicks these days, though.
How would they have known the tiny radar blip up there at 70,000 feet was a UN or US aircraft anyway? They accepted UN air recce in late 2002, carried out by various countries' assets.
Posted by: Alex | February 07, 2006 at 10:27 AM