On Mon, 10 May 2004 11:34:34 +0000, Jay Honeck wrote:

But anyway as someone else said, a Piper Cub would have done
the job in Iraq. Aerial reconnaisance is probably a terrible way
to find WMDs, and particularly ineffective when there aren't
any in the first place.

Actually, the Blackbird, with it's *sideways* looking cameras, was very
effective at finding Scud missiles and similar, hidden-in-caves kinds of
weaponry. Satellites, with their more-or-less straight down photos, can't
"see" that kind of stuff.

I'm not 100% certain, but I don't think the U-2 is actually being used for
recon anymore. High altitude research, yes, but I don't think they've sent
one over a hostile nation in many years.

Of course, as you point out, Iraq is no longer a hostile air environment.

I believe news reports leading up to the current Afgan and Iraqi wars,
cited U2's being used. I know some of the photos that were shown to the
UN where from a U2. So, I think U2's are still in general use. From what
I understand, they are fairly cheap to operate and very reliable. That's
hard to argue with.