From: "Tony Ingenoso" 

The only helicopters shot down in the NFZ I'm aware of were a couple of our
own (during the Clinton administration) when some of our own fighters lit
them up.

Of course with UN permission, it was permissible for Iraq to fly anything
it wanted in the NFZ.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec98/iraq_12-31.html

"PHIL PONCE: General, I guess the question I meant to ask - and maybe
I wasn't clear - is: Are there circumstances when Iraqis can fly into the
no-fly zones, and is that acceptable under any circumstances? GENERAL
MERRILL McPEAK: They can - anyone can fly into these no-fly zones if they
get U.N. permission. The U.N. notifies central command, and we clear
through flights through these no-fly zones. Now it doesn't happen often.
When Iraqis choose to penetrate them, as they have been with increasing
frequency lately, sort of testing us, and then quickly turning and running
back into their air space in what looks like might be an attempt to draw us
into a trap of some kind, that's done without U.N. permission, and, of
course, we observe this and can chase them and follow them."

With your political inclinations you'd have to be a big fan of McPeak...

Do you believe the UN would decline permission for Saddam to zap a
terrorist base if he indicated he wanted to?  That would be a pretty
shocking revelation about the UN if true.

"Robert Comer"  wrote in message
news:42bde820{at}w3.nls.net...
> > So attack helicopters aren't "air support" eh?
>
> It is, but I don't think armed helicopters could have got through the no
fly
> zone,

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