Attacks on Copters in Iraq Seen as Growing Risk

Whenever I read about the helicopter downings, I always can't help but think of my good friend and investing partner Andy, who is a captain stationed in the U.S. military base in Korea and whose proficiency includes being a Blackhawk pilot. I'm glad that he's safe and warm in Seoul rather than risking his life over in Iraq whenever I read about a new helicopter that was downed over there recently.

As I mentioned yesterday, there seemed to be a nascent trend of increased helicopter downings. A Bloomberg article that appeared on the front page of Yahoo News today seems to have picked up on this trend which I first started tracking here at the beginning of February. The article gives credence to my analysis, including the alarming parallel to the war in Afghanistan. It also includes an interesting speculation about the possibility of Iran's involvement in arming the insurgents in Iraq and the implications that such a development would have. On a related note, an Al-Queda group in Iraq released a video today of what it said was the downing of a U.S. helicopter.

I cite in relevant part from the Bloomberg article:

"The spike in successful attacks on U.S. helicopters in Iraq creates a growing risk for a major component of American military operations just as a new campaign to quell insurgent violence in Baghdad is beginning.

The downing of five helicopters in the past three weeks shows that Iraqi insurgents are becoming more adept at attacking these aircraft, which the military relies on for a variety of critical functions.

U.S. military officials are studying the downings to determine whether they reflect a statistical anomaly, or ``some new kind of tactics and techniques that we need to adjust to,'' said General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One thing that is clear, Pace said at a Feb. 2 news conference, is that ground fire ``has been more effective against our helicopters in the past couple of weeks.''

Four other helicopters went down between Jan. 20 and Feb. 2, killing a total of 21 people. All were shot down, Pace said. The five downings in less than three weeks were the most in a concentrated period since January 2004, when five helicopters went down, according to a survey by Washington's Brookings Institution.

Helicopters will loom large as U.S. forces increase their pace of operations in a new campaign to suppress insurgents and sectarian militias, said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. The vulnerability of ground vehicles to roadside bombs makes helicopters especially useful as an alternative means of transporting troops, he said.

The U.S. is likely to be providing air support for Iraqi forces even after most American ground troops leave, because the Iraqis have little air capability of their own.

The importance of maintaining that supremacy through helicopters is illustrated by the experience of Soviet military forces that fought throughout the 1980s to suppress an insurgency in Afghanistan.

The turning point in that war was the U.S. decision to arm the insurgents with shoulder-fired, anti-helicopter Stinger missiles in 1986, said Milt Bearden, who as CIA station chief in Pakistan coordinated aid to the rebels.

``The mood in the resistance turned on a dime,'' he said. ``You felt that if you had a guy with a Stinger with you, you had a talisman.'' As helicopter losses mounted, Soviet morale plummeted, and by early 1989 all forces had been withdrawn.

If Iraqi insurgents have obtained weaponry such as the Russian-made, heat-seeking SA-18 missile, it would increase the risk to American forces, McCaffrey said. It would also raise tensions between the U.S. and Iran, the most likely source of such equipment, he said.

According to the Brookings survey, 57 U.S. helicopters had been downed in Iraq through Feb. 4, resulting in 172 deaths, or about 5.5 percent of total American deaths since the conflict began in March 2003.

Cordesman noted in a paper released yesterday that this loss rate was far lower than the U.S. suffered in the Vietnam War, during which about 5,000 helicopters went down. Still, he said, the recent downings indicate that U.S. forces face an adaptable enemy that has learned to ``swarm'' around targets such as helicopters with concentrated ground fire.

And Cordesman said the ultimate target of the helicopter attacks may be much farther afield.
``The more media attention the insurgents can get through such attacks, the more likely it is that U.S. domestic politics will increase pressure for withdrawal from Iraq or place limits on the use of U.S. forces,'' he wrote."