The missiles...
Polish soldier says that the missiles they've found, have been produced by France this year.
Serial number....
Polish soldiers prepare the missiles to blow them up
Explosion
Posted on 10/04/2003 10:53:42 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Poland: French Missile Report Was Wrong By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:43 p.m. ET
WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- After a protest from French President Jacques Chirac, Poland said Saturday it had been mistaken in reporting that its troops found new French-made anti-aircraft misiles in central Iraq.
Chirac swiftly denied selling Iraq weapons in violation of the U.N. weapons embargo against Saddam Hussein's regime. The claims, he said, ``are as false today as they were yesterday.''
An aide to the Polish prime minister said an initial report that the Roland missiles found by Polish troops days ago were produced in 2003 was incorrect. France said it stopped producing any type of Roland missile in 1993.
Prime Minister Leszek Miller met with Chirac twice to explain the mistake, said the aide, Tadeusz Iwinski. The two leaders were in Rome on Saturday for a European Union summit.
``There can be no 2003 missiles since these missiles have not been made for 15 years,'' Chirac told reporters in Rome. ``Polish soldiers confused things. I told ... Miller so frankly -- friendly but firmly.''
``It was wrongly said that the rockets were produced in that year,'' Iwinski said by telephone from the summit. ``The matter is cleared up now. President Chirac has accepted Prime Minister Leszek Miller's explanation.''
The Polish defense minister, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, ``expressed his regrets'' for the mistake, a ministry statement said.
The report first came in a statement by a ministry spokesman to Polish state television that the troops uncovered French-made Roland missiles in the town of Hilla, in the zone of central Iraq where the Poles lead a peacekeeping force. A ministry statement said the missiles were destroyed on Wednesday.
Since Saddam's fall in April, U.S. troops and journalists have seen Roland missiles at some weapons sites. France long had close ties to Iraq that included lucrative weapons deals.
Paris supplied arms, in exchange for oil, during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. The French Foreign Ministry statement Saturday said that Roland 1 missiles and their launchers were exported to Iraq in 1980-81, whole Roland 2 missiles were exported for three years, from 1983 to 1986. France stopped making Roland 2s in 1988 and Roland 3s in 1993, it said.
The French ministry emphasized that France has not authorized the sale of weapons, or even spare parts, to Iraq since after July 1990. The United Nations imposed sanctions on weapons sales to Iraq after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The Polish Defense Ministry said the Roland missiles were among about a dozen missiles uncovered near Hilla on Tuesday, including Soviet-made Malutka, French Hot and French-German Milan missiles. The Roland missilesa re about 25 feet long, radar-guided and launched from the back of a truck.
The U.S. military found 35 Roland missiles when it captured Baghdad International Airport in April. Roland missiles also were found when Australian troops captured an airfield in western Iraq.
The Web site GlobalSecurity.org says the Roland weapon system is intended for anti-aircraft defense of armored and mechanized the units to counter aircraft flying to nearly at 1 1/2 times the speed of sound or hovering helicopters.
The United States stopped producing the Roland-type weapon in 1981.
France said it stopped producing any type of Roland missile in 1993.[snip]
``There can be no 2003 missiles since these missiles have not been made for 15 years,'' Chirac told reporters in Rome.
Well which is it? 10 years or 15 years?
Someone else on a different thread had a good question: locate the serial numbers and see who France DID sell the missles to (whether they are from 1993 or 2003).
Unbelievable. I saw the video on TV as well and clearly the missiles had "2003" on them. Something fishy is going on. We get the Kuwaitis intercepting sales of WMDs from Iraq and then it's later denied. Now this is denied.
- Roland 2MR Trigat
The Roland short range air defence missile system is produced by Euromissile. Roland entered service with the French Army in 1977, and is in service with ten countries.French Army systems are mounted on vehicles based on the AMX-30 main battle tank.The Roland system is effective against air threats from extremely low to medium altitude. It is available as a standalone weapon system on a single vehicle or as an airliftable shelter, Roland Carol. Roland Carol has been in production since 1995 with 20 systems delivered to the French Army.
Of course, this does not prove the French did not export missiles to Saddam in 2003, but it explains their position more clearly.
If the missiles were recently manufactured, then they MUST have been the new variants AND they must have been shipped in recently, well after the embargo began. That could be a very big scandal. Of course, as another poster has pointed out, it's possible 2003 refers to the export date, and they are not new missiles (but they were illegally shipped to Iraq).
No, the Roland 1 and Roland 2 went out of production in 1988 and 1993 respectively. The Roland 3 and Roland VT1 are still in production.
Now unles the Roland 3 is using 15 year old missiles I think Jackie told a fib!
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