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American Morning

Missing Missiles

Aired October 09, 2003 - 07:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Months after the end of major combat, Iraq remains a dangerous place. Hundreds of surface-to-air anti- aircraft missiles are missing. That's according to a report in "The New York Times." That only heightens the sense of insecurity in that country.
George Friedman, chairman of Stratfor, a private intelligence company, is with us live to talk about this in Austin, Texas.

Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Good to have you here.

GEORGE FRIEDMAN, CHAIRMAN, STRATFOR: Good morning.

HEMMER: A look at some of the specs on these missiles, it's called the SA-7, said to be able to travel over two miles, weighs about 40 to 45 pounds, 5 feet long, an infrared heat-seeking missile, Russian-made, developed by the Soviet army back in the late '60s. How easy is it to fire one of these and be effective?

FRIEDMAN: Well, it's like any weapon. It's got to have some training, and the training takes some time. So, you're not going to just pick it up and shoot it. It also has to be fired within certain parameters. The aircraft has to be at a certain distance, at a certain angle. And the weapon has to be maintained. If you don't maintain the weapon, it's going to deteriorate and not be effective.

HEMMER: You sound as if you're not too worried about this type of weaponry. Accurate?

FRIEDMAN: Well, you worry about every sort of weapon, but the two times that they were fired -- once in Saudi Arabia at Prince Sultan Air Base, once in Mombassa at an Israeli aircraft, civilian aircraft -- they failed to hit the target, partly because the weapons weren't maintained properly and partly because the people doing the shooting didn't know what they were doing. These are more difficult to fire than it appears in the movies.

HEMMER: It is said that the U.S. has launched a buyback program. They'll give you about $500 to turn one of these in, in Iraq. The black market indicates they could go as high as $5,000. What's the incentive there? Would a program like this work?

FRIEDMAN: Well, the guerrillas aren't selling at any price if they have an operational one, and the ones you can buy on the black market may or may not have been maintained, may or may not work. So, a lot of those numbers are kind of bogus. People say you can walk into a market in central Asia and buy one. Yes, maybe, but not one that works.

So, these buyback programs aren't going to work, because the people who want to use them against us aren't going to sell, and basically the ones that are hanging that out there just aren't in good shape.

HEMMER: From your position in Austin, Texas, any indication of how many might be in Iraq?

FRIEDMAN: No one really knows. There's an estimate from the Congressional Research Office that there are about 1,000, there may be a little more, floating around the world. But nobody ever took an inventory of the Iraqi weapons cache, and a lot of these may have been hidden in weapons caches before the war was over in anticipation of the guerrilla war. So, there is no one who reasonably has a count.

HEMMER: In the short time we have left, based on everything you're saying right now, George, would you recommend opening that Baghdad airport west of the city.

FRIEDMAN: I wouldn't really. I mean, that's too well-known and too well-targeted. But there are other airports in and around the area that could be used, could be expanded. And we might want to look at diversifying some of our landing and takeoff spots.

HEMMER: George Friedman from Austin, Texas, thanks for coming back. We'll speak again. Appreciate it.

FRIEDMAN: OK.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.







Aired October 9, 2003 - 07:10   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Months after the end of major combat, Iraq remains a dangerous place. Hundreds of surface-to-air anti- aircraft missiles are missing. That's according to a report in "The New York Times." That only heightens the sense of insecurity in that country.
George Friedman, chairman of Stratfor, a private intelligence company, is with us live to talk about this in Austin, Texas.

Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Good to have you here.

GEORGE FRIEDMAN, CHAIRMAN, STRATFOR: Good morning.

HEMMER: A look at some of the specs on these missiles, it's called the SA-7, said to be able to travel over two miles, weighs about 40 to 45 pounds, 5 feet long, an infrared heat-seeking missile, Russian-made, developed by the Soviet army back in the late '60s. How easy is it to fire one of these and be effective?

FRIEDMAN: Well, it's like any weapon. It's got to have some training, and the training takes some time. So, you're not going to just pick it up and shoot it. It also has to be fired within certain parameters. The aircraft has to be at a certain distance, at a certain angle. And the weapon has to be maintained. If you don't maintain the weapon, it's going to deteriorate and not be effective.

HEMMER: You sound as if you're not too worried about this type of weaponry. Accurate?

FRIEDMAN: Well, you worry about every sort of weapon, but the two times that they were fired -- once in Saudi Arabia at Prince Sultan Air Base, once in Mombassa at an Israeli aircraft, civilian aircraft -- they failed to hit the target, partly because the weapons weren't maintained properly and partly because the people doing the shooting didn't know what they were doing. These are more difficult to fire than it appears in the movies.

HEMMER: It is said that the U.S. has launched a buyback program. They'll give you about $500 to turn one of these in, in Iraq. The black market indicates they could go as high as $5,000. What's the incentive there? Would a program like this work?

FRIEDMAN: Well, the guerrillas aren't selling at any price if they have an operational one, and the ones you can buy on the black market may or may not have been maintained, may or may not work. So, a lot of those numbers are kind of bogus. People say you can walk into a market in central Asia and buy one. Yes, maybe, but not one that works.

So, these buyback programs aren't going to work, because the people who want to use them against us aren't going to sell, and basically the ones that are hanging that out there just aren't in good shape.

HEMMER: From your position in Austin, Texas, any indication of how many might be in Iraq?

FRIEDMAN: No one really knows. There's an estimate from the Congressional Research Office that there are about 1,000, there may be a little more, floating around the world. But nobody ever took an inventory of the Iraqi weapons cache, and a lot of these may have been hidden in weapons caches before the war was over in anticipation of the guerrilla war. So, there is no one who reasonably has a count.

HEMMER: In the short time we have left, based on everything you're saying right now, George, would you recommend opening that Baghdad airport west of the city.

FRIEDMAN: I wouldn't really. I mean, that's too well-known and too well-targeted. But there are other airports in and around the area that could be used, could be expanded. And we might want to look at diversifying some of our landing and takeoff spots.

HEMMER: George Friedman from Austin, Texas, thanks for coming back. We'll speak again. Appreciate it.

FRIEDMAN: OK.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.