U.S. Flight Plans Grounded

BAGHDAD—The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq for months boasted to reporters that commercial airlines were competing to fly into Baghdad International Airport.

But the rush to capture that market has ground to a halt — as have the boasts — in the face of a nightmare scenario envisioned by U.S. officials: a shoulder-fired missile striking a commercial jet in midair.

Leave aside the bombings, mortar attacks and gunfire that punctuate daily life in Iraq. Officials have become increasingly anxious about a possible airline disaster since Sunday, when a missile shot down a 10-tonne U.S. Army Chinook helicopter, killing 16 American soldiers. (The 16th soldier died yesterday from injuries suffered in the attack.) The soldiers were on their way home for their first break in more than seven months.

Amid the helicopter wreckage and bodies at the crash site near Falluja, about 50 kilometres west of Baghdad International, or BIAP as coalition officials have dubbed it, lay the dream of starting commercial flights anytime soon.

"This airport area is really enormous, and the task is enormous in controlling missiles," said Joe Morris, director of operations for CusterBattles, a U.S.-based company hired to manage security for the Baghdad airport.

"It's only a matter of time before a big airliner is brought down somewhere in the world — and Baghdad is a very good place to start," said James O'Halloran, editor of Jane's Land-Based Air Defence in Waterlooville, England.

"I cannot see the point in opening up BIAP until the coalition has really secured the area. Otherwise, you're really asking for trouble," he said by telephone.

Aside from the huge stock of surface-to-air missiles still missing in Iraq, other groups — including Al Qaeda — are believed to possess quantities of the weapons.

"There are literally hundreds of thousands of them in the world," O'Halloran said. "You can run around with them all day on your shoulder and not get tired. And they're very, very cheap. That is what makes them the favourite of these organizations."

Insurgents in Iraq appear to have intensified efforts to shoot down an aircraft flying in or out of Baghdad airport. At least 30 attempts have been made since July. Three of those were last week alone, including one against an airplane owned by air-freight company DHL and another against a Russian charter plane, coalition officials say.

Two attempts were made in July. And a Black Hawk helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade — a non-heat-seeking weapon normally fired at ground vehicles — near the central city of Tikrit on Oct. 25. No jet has been downed, perhaps because insurgents are poorly trained in missile use, or because they are firing rocket-propelled grenades, which cannot reach high altitudes.

Soldiers on the ground are also under constant attack. Poland suffered its first combat death since the aftermath of World War II when a Polish major was fatally wounded in an ambush south of Baghdad yesterday, and two American soldiers died in attacks near the capital and along the Syrian border.

United Nations weapons inspectors estimated before the war that Iraq possessed about 5,000 shoulder-fired missiles. Most are Russian-built Strela or SA-7 missiles, heat-seeking projectiles that cost just $1,000 (U.S.) each on the open market and are small and light enough to be hoarded in large quantities in secret caches.

In the wake of Sunday's devastating attack — the biggest single U.S. death toll of the Iraq conflict — U.S. officials conceded the military had found only a fraction of Iraq's missiles, despite an intense hunt since April.

"We've recovered hundreds of them ourselves," U.S. civilian administrator Paul Bremer said on CNN. "But there are still thousands of them left."

Most military aircraft are fitted with anti-missile equipment. But U.S. officials have not said whether the doomed Chinook was lacking this.

Baghdad may be one of the most dangerous destinations on earth these days. Yet the airport is also considered a potential gold mine in American plans for Iraq.

Almost entirely landlocked, with Baghdad in its centre, Iraq badly needs a major airport to fly in investors, developers and cargo.

"The airport is critical in any number of ways. There are huge opportunities in Baghdad," Morris said. "This could be a substantial hub in the region."

Today, the airport serves as Baghdad's biggest military base, and houses the detention facility for hundreds of top officials from Saddam Hussein's regime.