The U-2: vital for monitoring Iraq but vulnerable
     WASHINGTON -- November 9, 1997 10:18 a.m. EST (1518 GMT)  - The
 U-2 spy planes that Saddam Hussein is threatening to shoot down are
 more than a symbol of Western pressure on Iraq. American intelli-
 gence experts say they provide U.N. inspectors vital intelligence
 about Iraqi arms programs.
     The camera-equipped aircraft are seeking incongruities not easily
 explained -- large water pipes going into small buildings, a peri-
 meter fence appearing suddenly around a nondescript facility, large
 numbers of cars parking around a purported warehouse. With almost two
 tons of sensing equipment in the fuselage and wingtips, the U-2 can
 beam back imagery to ground monitors while still in flight.
     The spy planes also are vulnerable, and that presents the United
 Nations and the United States with a dilemma: Risk conflict with Iraq
 or forgo crucial information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
    "The history of this is that those flights and the U.S. inspectors
 have been absolutely critical to the discoveries that UNSCOM has made
 to date," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East analyst with the
 Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based
 think tank.
     UNSCOM is the group of inspectors mandated by the U.N. Security
 Council to ferret out and ensure the destruction of any nuclear,
 chemical or biological warfare weapons that Iraq has failed to
 destroy.
     The inspectors' discoveries so far indicate Iraqi President
 Saddam is trying to create a nuclear weapons capability while secret-
 ly developing an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.
                          The 'Dragon Ladies'
     With their wispy 103-foot (31-meter) wingspan capable of carrying
 the plane above 70,000 feet (21,300 meters), the U-2 "Dragon Ladies,"
 as the U.S. Air Force calls them, are hard to shoot down -- but not
 impossible.
     When U-2 flights resume Monday, as promised by UNSCOM, Iraq will
 be notified as it has been since post-Persian Gulf War monitoring
 began six years ago. A map displayed last week by Iraqi Deputy Prime
 Minister Tariq Aziz showing recent U-2 flight paths indicated clearly
 that Iraq can track the planes.
     Iraq's arsenal has Soviet-built SA-2 surface-to-air missiles that
 can reach targets at U-2 altitude, but the odds of a hit are long,
 according to Chris Pocock, author of two books on the U-2. A missile
 becomes less maneuverable in the thin air, but the spy plane is cap-
 able of making tight, evasive turns. Seven U-2s have been shot down:
 one over the Soviet Union, five over China and one over Cuba.
     "It's a pretty good score in favor of the U-2 when you consider
 the plane has been flying for 40 years," Pocock said. "The last one
 downed was in 1967, and the U-2 flew over Iraq during Desert Storm."
     A report in "Inside the Air Force," a trade publication, said the
 U.S. Air Force has been slow to install upgraded electronic counter-
 measure equipment. But Pentagon officials and outside experts say the
 U-2 is much improved from the spy plane shot down by the Soviet Union
 in 1960.
     To fire a missile at a U-2, Iraq must "paint" the spy plane with
 missile-guiding radar.  That opens up the Iraqi missile battery to
 counterattack by U.S. warplanes armed with radar-seeking missiles.
     "While there's obviously a danger to the U-2 pilot, there is
 certain danger to the Iraqi air defense operator who's foolish enough
 to turn on his radar," Pike said.  "That's why the Iraqi integrated
 air defense collapsed during the Persian Gulf War: The Iraqi opera-
 tors didn't want to die, and they knew that if they turned their
 radar on we would kill them."
                          Other options
     Under the threat of attack, the U.S. could opt to monitor Iraq
 using spy satellites. But besides creating the impression of backing
 down to Saddam, such a move would also have disadvantages to
 intelligence collectors.
     Spy satellites operate in polar orbit and pass over a target for
 only a few minutes per day. Such sporadic coverage would make it
 easier for the Iraqis to conceal their weapons operations and to
 move around sensitive equipment to avoid detection.
     U-2s, as the looping lines on Aziz's map indicated, can fly ir-
 regular patterns, tailored to the intelligence needs and to the lay-
 out of a particular suspected weapons site.
     Should the photographs reveal something, U.S. intelligence offi-
 cials could make them public -- say in a U.N. Security Council
 meeting.
     Not so with spy satellite imagery, which the United States
 considers highly sensitive and does not release, said Jeffrey
 Richelson, author of several books on the U.S. intelligence
 community.
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