"Bill Silvey" wrote in message
...
"Gene Storey" wrote in message

"Bill Silvey" wrote

The case of the U.S.S. Stark, the Saudis never even got off the
ground. Their 5 minute alert birds were told to stand-down and let
the Iraqi return without a fight. The AWACS crew created an
international incident in labeling the Saudis "...a bunch of cowards."

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. Saudi Arabia *is
not*
an ally.

Not that I would deny that Saudi Arabia is not a US ally (they are foremost
the ally of their corrupt royals, feeling to sit above all the others, and
only then anything else). But, hell, they had an agreement with the Iraqis,
according to which the IrAF was free to use parts of their airspace - or
even to land aircraft in emergency at Saudi airfields. According to their
own ROEs, there was no way in hell they could stop that Mirage F.1EQ-5,
except it would still have been armed while trying to land at one of their
air bases. Anything else would be against the agreement between Ryadh and
Baghdad.

In the case of the downing of an Iranian F-4E (and damaging of the other),
in 1984, the situation was different because there were no such agreements
with Tehran. Quite on the contrary, the Iranians were about to attack a ship
inside the Saudi territorial waters. The situation was also different
because one of the involved F-15s was a D, with a US instructor in the rear
seat. The US officers aboard the US E-3A patrolling nearby ordered the two
pilots - which were on an in-flight refueling training sortie (with USAF
KC-10As) - to intercept the Phantoms, but the pilots were reluctant, as
neither was fully qualified on the F-15s. Then the US officers on the AWACS
and the US instructor in the rear cockpit of the F-15D pushed them to go -
and off they went.

So, the obvious lesson from these situations is that you can't expect the
others to always do what is in US interest: the US is also not doing things
that are not in US interest.

Tom Cooper
Co-Author:
Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-1988:
http://www.acig.org/pg1/content.php
and,
Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat:
http://www.osprey-publishing.co.uk/t...hp/title=S6585