Video Of Blackhawk Downed North Of Baghdad

A Blackhawk crash which fits the description of the 8th chopper lost in a one-month period in Iraq was put up on Live Leak today. It was released by Jaish al-Mujahedin, a salafist insurgency group. The group which previously released videos of shooting helicopters down with SAMs was the Islamic State of Iraq, so this is different set of characters. This Blackhawk was forced down by massed machine-gun fire, not by a lucky RPG hit as Spokes-General Caldwell claimed in a press conference last week.

Warning, there is annoying propaganda music throughout the 11-minute video and and many, many Allaaah-hoo Akhbars, but most of the video time is helpfully devoted to showing the insurgents' tactical set-up. Also, no US troops are said to have been injured in the crash, so this footage is much easier to watch than the others.

The insurgents positioned at least five heavy machine-guns distributed along a skirmish line for a prepared ambush. They did so in broad daylight, with not much attention to concealment, in an unpopulated area not far from a well-traveled highway. Two Blackhawk helicopters fly at very low altitude in front of their positions. The range is difficult to estimate because of frequent use of the camera's zoom lens, but if forced to guess, the choppers probably pass within 300 meters of the insurgents, who open fire. One helicopter slows over a field, nearly completes a half-circle, and seems to lose power while hovering at a height of about 20 feet. The second Blackhawk circles above the site. In footage taken later, the Blackhawk has crashed sunny-side up, but the force of the impact has broken off all its rotors. The cameraman doesn't dare approach closer than 200 meters from the fuselage, and once again makes full use of his zoom function.

The striking features of this engagement are that the insurgents possess large, anti-aircraft grade machine guns, felt bold enough to transport them to a remote area to set up an ambush, and felt confident US helicopters would fly close enough to hit. Some of their gun positions are devoid of any cover, and one is set up in the back of a truck. This would indicate complete confidence in freedom to transport and set up the guns, to not be reported if observed, and to have enough time to withdraw undetected. They must have known the air route was in regular use and decided it was vulnerable. Remarkably, they didn't fear close coordination and rapid retaliation from covering air assets, and thought they had time to disassemble large, cumbersome weapons and safely withdraw. Footage was later taken of the downed helicopter at close range, which tends to confirm those assumptions. Sometime between the crash and now, the area was left unsecured.

The video illustrates the CENTCOM tactical advisory to its helicopter pilots to fly low to avoid missile fire has a bad weakness--it places crews and occupants at risk of lower-tech ambushes with machine guns. Responsible commanders would tell their pilots to get up beyond the range of ground fire and SAMs in unsecured Sunni-held areas. While it would burn more fuel and be hated for its inconvenience, flying at high altitudes would deny the Sunni insurgency its most vulnerable US targets, and save lives.

It's Not A Crash--It's A Gravitational Exchange

A Blackhawk was shot down yesterday, and all aboard were said to be safely evacuated by a second helicopter. The Army was in denial mode again, initially describing the crash as a "hard landing." Initially, the Reuters version of the story released here said all passengers were unharmed, and omitted a police captain's report that he witnessed a ball of fire explode from the chopper after it was hit with "some sort of projectile." Alternet then added the police captain's quotes back into the story. Note the careful wording in the Yahoo! version, which avoids mention of injuries or location of the crash, censored down to "north of Baghdad."

This is the eighth helicopter shot down since January 20th. CENTCOM generals have repeatedly said this past month they were altering tactics and upgrading countermeasures to avoid continued losses. For the record, the Soviets lost 330 helicopters in ten years of fighting in Afghanistan, with the rate increasing markedly after the introduction of CIA-supplied Stinger missiles in 1985/6. To put this in perspective, the US helicopter loss rate month-to-month is much higher than what the Soviets suffered in their worst years in Afghanistan. Obviously this could be an anomaly, but all the US helicopters shot down in the last thirty days were in a small Sunni zone of Iraq, "north of Baghdad." Afghanistan was five times the area of Vietnam.

Update: ThinkProgress has the CNN video of the story above, with Spokes-General Caldwell claiming the helicopter was hit with an RPG. That's possible and it has happened, but it would be like hitting an eagle with a water balloon launcher.

Sunnis Raise Ante--With SAMs

One of my pet hobbies on this blog has been to warn almost incessantly that the Saudis and the Iranians, if Iraqi Sunnis or Shi'ite groups were squeezed hard enough, would both start to supply surface-to-air missiles to their favored cousins, and that these missiles would drastically drive up US troop losses to an entirely new level. It appears to be happening, and the Sunnis aren't getting shoulder-fired SAMs from our the islamo-fascists in Iran. They're getting them from our islamo-friends in Saudi Arabia. Here's the story:

The United States military has confirmed that all 13 U.S. soldiers aboard a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter military helicopter were killed when it crashed near Baghdad, Iraq.

"A U.S. forces helicopter went down northeast of Baghdad ... Emergency Coalition Forces responded and secured the scene. Thirteen passengers and crew members were aboard the aircraft and all were killed," said a statement issued by the U.S. military.

The cause of the crash is not known and an investigation has been launched, but witnesses near the crash have stated that the helicopter was hit with a "rocket" or another form of a "projectile" and was in flames while flying in the air, before it crashed.

"I'm not sure if it was a rocket or other projectiles. After the helicopter was fired upon it was obvious that it was losing control. Then it crashed with an explosion and the smoke started," said a farmer who witnessed the crash. He also stated that he and other witnesses refused to go near the downed helicopter to attempt a rescue of survivors, but was concerned that if he had done so, soldiers would have begun to fire shots at him.

I was against the Iraq War because it wasn't hard to see this kind of thing coming. It is reason to mourn, not cause for celebration. No good comes of it. Well, not unless you're an arms manufacturer. Then go ahead and pop the cork on another bottle of top-shelf bubbly. You get another $100 million to build another helicopter. And unless someone stops Dubya's next doubled-down long-shot bet, whoever makes helicopters for the US Army is going to be as happy as Britney Spears hopped up on cocaine and vicodin.