Posted on 10/10/2002 8:47:14 AM PDT by Destro
Yugoslav president denies reports of air defense help to Iraq
Thu Oct 10, 8:41 AM ET
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press Writer
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - The Yugoslav president denied Thursday reports that Serbian military experts are helping Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) organize his air defense during possible U.S. attacks.
But Vojislav Kostunica (news - web sites) did not entirely rule out that some individuals may have made private arrangements with the Iraqis.
"That kind of official cooperation existed before" during Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites)'s regime, Kostunica told The Associated Press, referring to the former Yugoslav president now on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague (news - web sites), Netherlands. "I'm sure it does not exist now."
"But anything to do with weapons is a lucrative challenge for some people," Kostunica added. "Even the Americans uncovered some of their own citizens (fighting for the Taliban) in Afghanistan (news - web sites)."
British and Yugoslav media have alleged that an unidentified number of radar and weapons systems experts are helping the Iraqis in organizing air defenses based on the experience they had in Yugoslavia during the 1999 NATO (news - web sites) air strikes on the Balkan country.
Even though outdated, the Yugoslav air defense performed exceptionally well, protecting military targets in Kosovo and shooting down two U.S. jets, including an F-117 Nighthawk, the world's first operational "stealth" attack plane.
During Milosevic's reign until October 2000, Yugoslavia had maintained close military links with Hussein's regime, servicing Iraqi air force MIG jets near Belgrade and taking part in the construction of Iraqi military facilities, including bunkers in Saddam's presidential palaces in Baghdad.
The Yugoslav Army this week denied continued military aid to the Iraqis, saying the country's intention is not to help Hussein's hard-line regime, but forge close ties with NATO.
Let me put it to you this way - from FY 91 through FY 00, the USAF lost, on average, 28.4 planes per year, making Serb Air Defences less effective over the span of 79 days than one month's worth of simple attrition, yet according to you and your source, they were masters of their art.
"the Yugoslav air defense performed exceptionally well"
You are dyslexic, and your posts merely aim to propagate your affliction upon a wider audience - Yugoslavia's air defences proved wholly inadequate to the task, NATO achieved air supremacy in the theater, and that is the crux of the issue.
As you have made abundantly clear here and elsewhere, your theories on world events are misinformed and based more upon some personal agenda rather than upon fact, and in view of your inability to support any of them when confronted, your pattern of dissembling and attempted veering of the discussion towards other topics makes perfect cowardly sense.
You are sinking beneath contempt - if only that had the same effect as submersion in water.
You are too scatterbrained to see how completely you have compromised yourself, haggis boy.
not to mention that 35 decoys were repeatedly bombed but never touched........but perhaps Hoplite measures success by the number of Albanian Farm Tractors confirmed destroyed
why Hoplite continues to spend time and energy defending Clinton's abuse of our Miltary is difficult to fathom.
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