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01 April 2003: "In HARM's way?"

Regarding the explosion in the Shu'ale (also spelt al-Shulaa) district of Baghdad two days ago, Tim Blair's blog, especially contributions by correspondents, provides a fascinating read.

Basing themselves on a report of—of all people—Robert Fisk, who lists a serial number on a part allegedly from the offending piece of ordnance, the general consensus among Blair's correspondents seems to be that the missile may well have been a AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile, or HARM for short, from US Navy stocks. This is a missile which homes in on emissions from air defence radars.
One correspondent points out in the follow-up entry that the US has fired rather a large number of these at Iraqi air defence sites over the last decade, as a result of which there are many such parts scattered around Iraq, so that it is by no means certain that the part was actually from the missile which supposedly hit the souk, but another reader points out that the small crater caused by the missile's impact, along with the paradoxically large amount of shrapnel damage, would conform with the HARM theory.

Of course, this raises other points; the HARM, as stated, is a missile specifically designed to home in on radar emissions. Thus, it seems likely that there was an active air defence radar in the vicinity of the souk at which the missile was fired. After all, it seems less than plausible that the US Navy would waste a rather specialised and expensive piece of ordnance in this fashion; there are cheaper ways of committing an "atrocity" (an emotive word generally used inappropriately, in my opinion).
It should also be noted that Tim Blair's correspondents are in agreement that there is no possibility whatsoever of the explosion having been caused by a Tomahawk cruise missile; the crater is simply too small.

It also does not answer the question of what caused the earlier explosion in Sha'ab (though Fisk—predictably, indeed reflexively—blames the Americans for this as well, claiming that "at least 21 Iraqi civilians were killed or burned to death by two missiles fired by an American jet," but—equally predictably—not providing any proof to back up that assertion).

P.S. (1730Z-8, 01-Apr-2003) This entry on Blogs of War links to this story by Brian Whitaker in the Guardian. Whitaker is evidently one of the legions of journalists who don't let research get in the way of a good story:

Meanwhile it has emerged - as a result of detective work on the internet by a Guardian reader - that the explosion in a Baghdad market which killed more than 60 people last Friday was indeed caused by a cruise missile and not an Iraqi anti-aircraft rocket as the US has suggested.

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