From ABC News:
The White House stated on September 27 that it is expanding a program to secure and destroy the large stockpile of surface-to-air (SAM) missiles in Libya. Currently there is a single State Department official on the ground in Libya working with five contractors devoted to "explosive ordinance disposal." All six of these persons are working with the Transitional National Council (Libya’s provisional government) to find the looted missiles, reporters were told by White House press secretary Jay Carney.
Carney noted that additional personnel were going to be deployed and that the State Department and UN would work with the TNC on the issue of these SAM weapons.
Unnamed American officials and security experts told ABC News that thousands of heat-seeking missiles could be gathered by al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, creating a threat to commercial airliners. Senator Barbara Boxer of California called it "our worst nightmare."
It was estimated that Libya had about 20,000 portable SAM devices before the uprising in February. Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro said there is no clear picture of how many missiles they are attempting to track down. "We’re making great progress…" he noted.
The SAM missiles are four to six feet long and made in Russia. Some weigh just 55 pounds with launcher. They function by locking on heat, such as that generated by the engines of aircraft, can be fired from a vehicle or from a human shoulder, and are accurate at a range of over two miles.
"Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch first warned about the problem after a trip to Libya six months ago," ABC reports. "He took pictures of pickup truckloads of the missiles being carted off during another trip just a few weeks ago."
Bouckaert continues, "I myself could have removed several hundred if I wanted to, and people can literally drive up with pickup trucks or even 18 wheelers and take away whatever they want. Every time I arrive at one of these weapons facilities, the first thing we notice going missing is the surface-to-air missiles."
Bouckaert is concerted that dangerous groups in the region could end up with these weapons. Al Qaeda is known to be active in Libya. Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism advisor who now is a consultant with ABC thinks the probability of al Qaeda smuggling stinger-like missiles out of Libya is "probably pretty high."
Tommy Victor, spokesman for the National Security Council, told ABC that the US has been involved, since the beginning of the Libyan crisis, in supporting the efforts of allies and partners to secure all conventional weapons stockpiles.
The State Department calculates that since the 1970s more than 40 civilian planes around the world have been hit by surface-to-air missiles. Military planes have some protection against such SAM devices, and Senator Boxer advocates ensuring "that wide-bodied planes all have this protection." Boxer first spoke to ABC News about the SAM threat back in 2006. The protective method Boxer endorses costs about $1 million per plane and directs a laser beam into the incoming missile. Boxer thinks this approach may "be more practical than trying to round up all the missing Libyan missiles."
ABC reports that when the Afghan mujahideen were fighting the Soviets in the 1980s, the CIA supplied 1,000 Stinger SAM devices, which were very effective against Soviet aircraft. But after the Soviets left, the CIA spent millions trying to buy back the remaining missiles. Bouckaert says the price offered was $100,000 for each Stinger. He said, "In Libya we’re talking about something on the order of 20,000 surface-to-air missiles. This is one of the greatest stockpiles of these weapons that has ever gone on the loose."
-- Summarized from an ABC News report available at:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/nightmare-libya-20000-surface-air-missiles-missing/story?id=14610199
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Footnote by the blog author:
Remember how we got into this?!
We decided we didn’t need a war powers resolution nor declaration of war. NATO would handle it. The American people didn’t want our troops and aviators under foreign control, so this operation was given over to a Canadian general. It wasn’t a war, the White House told us, and it didn’t reach the level of "kinetic" activity that defines a war.
Even though we were heavily involved in the Libyan war effort, we weren’t in control, we didn’t put our troops around the stockpiles that were captured, and now millions of civilians who fly in the world are endangered for years because of these rogue devices.
The present administration in the White House is to blame for this manufactured crisis of rogue missiles. In under-prosecuting a strategically unnecessary war, the USA has unleashed a demon upon uninvolved civilians.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Follow-on news: for months Iran has been gathering these SAMs and transporting them to neighboring Sudan:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8782103/Iran-steals-surface-to-air-missiles-from-Libya.html
The White House stated on September 27 that it is expanding a program to secure and destroy the large stockpile of surface-to-air (SAM) missiles in Libya. Currently there is a single State Department official on the ground in Libya working with five contractors devoted to "explosive ordinance disposal." All six of these persons are working with the Transitional National Council (Libya’s provisional government) to find the looted missiles, reporters were told by White House press secretary Jay Carney.
Carney noted that additional personnel were going to be deployed and that the State Department and UN would work with the TNC on the issue of these SAM weapons.
Unnamed American officials and security experts told ABC News that thousands of heat-seeking missiles could be gathered by al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, creating a threat to commercial airliners. Senator Barbara Boxer of California called it "our worst nightmare."
It was estimated that Libya had about 20,000 portable SAM devices before the uprising in February. Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro said there is no clear picture of how many missiles they are attempting to track down. "We’re making great progress…" he noted.
The SAM missiles are four to six feet long and made in Russia. Some weigh just 55 pounds with launcher. They function by locking on heat, such as that generated by the engines of aircraft, can be fired from a vehicle or from a human shoulder, and are accurate at a range of over two miles.
"Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch first warned about the problem after a trip to Libya six months ago," ABC reports. "He took pictures of pickup truckloads of the missiles being carted off during another trip just a few weeks ago."
Bouckaert continues, "I myself could have removed several hundred if I wanted to, and people can literally drive up with pickup trucks or even 18 wheelers and take away whatever they want. Every time I arrive at one of these weapons facilities, the first thing we notice going missing is the surface-to-air missiles."
Bouckaert is concerted that dangerous groups in the region could end up with these weapons. Al Qaeda is known to be active in Libya. Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism advisor who now is a consultant with ABC thinks the probability of al Qaeda smuggling stinger-like missiles out of Libya is "probably pretty high."
Tommy Victor, spokesman for the National Security Council, told ABC that the US has been involved, since the beginning of the Libyan crisis, in supporting the efforts of allies and partners to secure all conventional weapons stockpiles.
The State Department calculates that since the 1970s more than 40 civilian planes around the world have been hit by surface-to-air missiles. Military planes have some protection against such SAM devices, and Senator Boxer advocates ensuring "that wide-bodied planes all have this protection." Boxer first spoke to ABC News about the SAM threat back in 2006. The protective method Boxer endorses costs about $1 million per plane and directs a laser beam into the incoming missile. Boxer thinks this approach may "be more practical than trying to round up all the missing Libyan missiles."
ABC reports that when the Afghan mujahideen were fighting the Soviets in the 1980s, the CIA supplied 1,000 Stinger SAM devices, which were very effective against Soviet aircraft. But after the Soviets left, the CIA spent millions trying to buy back the remaining missiles. Bouckaert says the price offered was $100,000 for each Stinger. He said, "In Libya we’re talking about something on the order of 20,000 surface-to-air missiles. This is one of the greatest stockpiles of these weapons that has ever gone on the loose."
-- Summarized from an ABC News report available at:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/nightmare-libya-20000-surface-air-missiles-missing/story?id=14610199
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Footnote by the blog author:
Remember how we got into this?!
We decided we didn’t need a war powers resolution nor declaration of war. NATO would handle it. The American people didn’t want our troops and aviators under foreign control, so this operation was given over to a Canadian general. It wasn’t a war, the White House told us, and it didn’t reach the level of "kinetic" activity that defines a war.
Even though we were heavily involved in the Libyan war effort, we weren’t in control, we didn’t put our troops around the stockpiles that were captured, and now millions of civilians who fly in the world are endangered for years because of these rogue devices.
The present administration in the White House is to blame for this manufactured crisis of rogue missiles. In under-prosecuting a strategically unnecessary war, the USA has unleashed a demon upon uninvolved civilians.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Follow-on news: for months Iran has been gathering these SAMs and transporting them to neighboring Sudan:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8782103/Iran-steals-surface-to-air-missiles-from-Libya.html
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