Iraq has developed a method of neutralising the US HARM anti-radar missile and preventing it attacking its air defence sites, the commander of Iraqi air defences said here Wednesday.
"The Iraqis have succeeding in foiling these missiles," General Shahin Yassin told a press conference. He said none of the HARMs fired since the US-British December 1998 air raids on Iraq had hit their targets.
The Iraqis had succeeded in making them behave like "mules looking for water in the desert, not knowing where to go," he said, adding that it sometimes took two or three days to discover where they had finally exploded. He did not say what method the Iraqis were using to disorientate them.
"If it was really as accurate as the manufacturer boasts, we wouldn't have any more radar," he said, adding that 2,300 of the missiles had been fired on Iraq by US planes "in the past few years."
Shahin called on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which provide facilities for US and British planes patrolling the no-fly zones they have imposed over north and south Iraq, to "take note of the true capacities of the United States."
"They (the United States) inflate their abilities and make false accusations against Iraq to blackmail" its two Arab Gulf neighbours and force them to accept the US presence, he said.
The HARM — High Speed Anti-radiation Missile — is an air-to-surface tactical missile designed to knock out radar-equipped air defence systems by homing in on the transmissions.
When reporting air raids on Iraq the US military uses a stock phrase, saying its aircraft "dropped ordnance on elements of the Iraqi integrated air defense system".
The United States says the planes only target military objectives in self-defence but the Iraqis say civilians and civilian installations are frequently hit.
