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The Magic Cruise Missile by Joe Vialls The Magic Cruise Missile from their 450 kilogram warheads, missile number 37 continued alone, flying a further 20,500 metres north along the main high- way into Baghdad before diving into its carefully pre-pro- grammed target, the Al Rashid Hotel in the city centre. Just six hours before the Tomahawks were launched from US ships in the Persian Gulf and southern Red Sea, 200 delegates from 51 countries attending an Islamic conference in Baghdad voted overwhelmingly to back President Hussein's demands that the illegal US ‘no fly’ zones over Iragi sovereign territory be removed. When the lone Tomahawk approached its target six hours later, those same 200 delegates were preparing for bed at the Al Rashid. Eleven delegates were seriously wounded. There are those in the Pentagon who might try to claim this was merely an unfortunate 'mistake', and that they had 'forgot- ten’ to mention the Tomahawks had no need to fly over central Baghdad when launched from the Persian Gulf or southern Red Sea against the factory complex at Zaafaraniya in the south. On this singular occasion the Pentagon apologists would be trapped by the demonstrated prowess of the Tomahawk cruise missile system. Its accuracy at the target means the Tomahawk is guaranteed to fall within a 176 square metre circle. Iraq con- tains just over two billion such circles in a total land area of 435,000 square kilometres, each equally vulnerable to the 37 ctuise missiles launched outside Iraqi sovereign territory. The chances of the Tomahawk hitting the Al Rashid ‘by accident’ are less than one in two billion. On 19th January this year, the only civilian 5-star hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, was hit by a lone Tomahawk cruise missile. The Pentagon claims it was an accident. They were lying! Tomahawk cruise missile that slammed into the Al Rashid Hotel in downtown Baghdad on 19 January was deflected from its ‘real’ target in the southern suburb of Zaafaraniya by anti-aircraft gunners in Baghdad city. Contrary to Bush Administration claims, the missile could not have trav- elled as far as the Al Rashid by mistake. At approximately 9 pm on Sunday 19 January, American warships in the Persian Gulf started disgorging Tomahawk cruise missiles. Each Tomahawk rapidly sank to an altitude of less than one hundred metres as its miniature turbofan engine steadily increased missile speed to 800 kilometres per hour on a pre-planned flight path for Zaafaraniya--a high-tech factory complex alleged by the Bush Administration to be a nuclear facility. The Tomahawks would not risk anti-aircraft fire over the city of Baghdad during the attack because Zaafaraniya is located a full twenty kilometres to the south-south-east of the city and well out of range of the latter's formidable array of anti-aircraft guns. Baghdad was not ‘on the way’ to Zaafaraniya because each Tomahawk was flying up from the south at treetop height and would hit the target factory and explode into oblivion long before the lights of Baghdad city appeared on the horizon. As each individual Tomahawk streaked north across the dark- ened countryside of southern Iraq, its inertial guidance system was continually making microscopic adjustments to height and speed, ensuring the missile would strike inside a 15 metre ‘bullseye’ at the target factory. Pentagon claims for such phenomenal accuracy were rein- forced on 19 January by both American and Iraqi sources. The target was completely pulverised by 36 Tomahawk missiles, all of which fell inside the boundary fence of the factory complex. Missile number 37 was not programmed for Zaafaraniya. As its 36 cousins slammed into the factory with massive explosions A ccording to Bush Administration defence sources, the Put another way, the chances that the Tomahawk in question was deliberately launched against the only five-star civilian hotel in Baghdad hosting the 200 delegates to the Islamic con- ference that backed President Hussein earlier in the day, are more than two billion-to-one in favour. If the Bush Administration deliberately fired the Tomahawk at the Al Rashid Hotel in order to frighten, maim or kill the Islamic delegates, then a new dimension has been added to US "New World Order’ atrocities in the Middle East, that of attempted political assassination. There is another new and frightening dimension. During the Gulf 'War'’, the Bush Administration showed its utter contempt for the media by trapping the entire press corps inside a five- star hotel in Riyadh, where journalists were force-fed propagan- da by the US military public relations machine. With the Tomahawk attack on the Al Rashid hotel, base for most western network crews in Baghdad, the US Administration had indicat- ed that the lives of western journalists are of no concern what- ever during a punitive military strike. President Clinton recently went public with a statement that the United States would never countenance political assassina- tion. Perhaps President Clinton will now be prepared to outlaw ‘attempted’ political assassination as well. oo NEXUSe11 Vol 2, No 13 - 1993