I can only assume that the painted 'spy' plane would have been placed on autopilot and the original pilot would have bailed out in safe territory. Another thought, is it possible to fly these things remotely? I don't think 'even' Bush would have contemplated the possible death or capture of an American pilot to get his war. (Well, maybe he would, but I'm sure the resultant problems would quickly be pointed out by advisors with brains.) Also, once the Iraqis discovered that the plane was indeed an American spy plane in disguise Bush would be in very hot water regardless of whether the Brit memo had been made public.

PS: Steve, I don't know if it's my computer or your site, but there seems to be a loading problem with the pictures.

I doubt that flying the plane as a deliberate provocation in and of itself would have violated any law, but that doesn't seem like the point to me. It would have been a lie intended to justify a violation of law: the international law that says you can only attack another country in direct self-defense or when authorized by the UN Security Council. The disguised spy plane would not be a lie; it would be fraudulent "evidence" of the need to invade, just as using the discredited Curveball intelligence or Niger-Iraq uranium connection constituted the use of fraudulent evidence to justify an illegal act -- not violations of the law in and of themselves.

If a pilot is flying an airplane of another nation in a spying mission, and he is wearing the uniform of his own country, if caught, he is a spy, and subject to espionage charges. I believe the Geneva Conventions (not that Bush gives a hang about the Geneva Conventions) would not protect a pilot under this circumstance.

Would it not be within the UN's right to disavow a U2 overflight? Would it not be within the UN's right to identify the USA as the perpetrator of such a harebrained scheme.

If this incident can be proven to be true, it is just one more justification or proof that the Bush admin lied us into war. If this is proven to be true, it is just another log on the fire that says the Bush admin cooked the intelligence to illegally justify war, and it certainly enhances the circumstantial case that if they were willing to cook this scheme up, they were willing to make other justifications up, like fake uranium stories, saying that Saddam had WMD, even though the Weapons Inspectors on the ground, the Weapons Inspectors who were thrown out of Iraq, not by Saddam, but by George, said that the WMD was not there.

The inspectors would daily say No WMD's found today. Bush/Cheney would say they were moving them around like chess pieces. Or they would say that they had intelligence that they were in certain locations, and when the Inspectors asked for them, the Bush/Cheney warmaking cabal refused, saying that they would give away their intelligence sources if they disclosed this to the UN inspectors.

Who can believe anything this admin says? I know I can't.

Steve:

I looked around a little to see what I could find about this. I am not a lawyer, so please take this with a grain of salt.

I believe there are two issues in play here. The first involves the legality of the overflight itself. The second involves the marking of a U.S. military plane in a deceptive manner.

The legality of overflights by coalition forces in the no-fly zones was always a matter of some contention. In fact, it was suggested at least once prior to the beginning of the military campaign in 2003 that an incident in the no-fly zones could trigger a full-scale war (intentionally or unintentionally). For an example, see the article Persian Gulf or Tonkin Gulf? by Robert Dreyfuss in the American Prospect.

If one accepts the legality of the no-fly zones - as did three U.S. administrations - then the problem becomes: What laws govern the conduct of coalition forces engaged in the no-fly zone? The United Nations never spelled out any rules. My suggestion would be this: as a minimum, U.S. and coalition forces should obey "the laws of war". In the area of "law of air warfare" international law seems to be thin. The Hague Rules of Air Warfare were established in 1922-1923, but never ratified. It is claimed that many of these rules are part of what is called "customary law" -evidently this means law that is not codified but widely accepted anyway. Article XIX of the Hague Rules is: "The use of false external marks is forbidden."

A treaty that has been ratified by many nations is the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I). Here is Article 37, "Prohibition of Perfidy", part 1:

It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: (a) the feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; (b) the feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; (c) the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and (d) the feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict.

Parts (c) and (d) seem directly relevant. However, the United States has not ratified Protocol I. Also, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan have ratified Protocol I. Ironically, this very same clause is one sometimes used to target terrorists - who feign civilian status. In my opinion it is one that the U.S. clearly accepts, even if we haven't ratified the Protocol.

Here is President Reagan's message to the Senate about Protocol I. I believe this is part of the current controversy about whether terrorists should be protected by the Geneva Conventions. The controversy involves a different part of Protocol I (not Article 37).

I always thought that the UN only had black helicopters, with no other markings.

While appreciating Dirk's leetle joke, I had a related question as I read this story two days ago: What planes have ever had 'UN markings'? Are there such things as 'UN planes'?

I thought all major military resources on UN missions were simply loaners from the militaries of member states. In what circumstances have planes ever been repainted with UN markings?

From seeing them in El Salvador, I'm aware that peacekeeping missions have their own (UN-owned?) pickups and SUVs. But that's very different from a tank or plane.

i read recently that it would have been illegal to fly under un colors. pretty sure it was a writer i respect, but i cant remember reference. hopefully an international lawyer will weigh in.

I took the point of the proposal (in the memo reported by Sands and apparently seen by few others) was that the U-2 would be not only in UN colors, but also nominally assisting the weapons inspectors -- otherwise, why use a reconnaissance plane instead of something that would be harder to shoot down and more durable? In this connection, Iraq would not only be shooting at a flight in its airspace, but shooting at weapons inspectors. Am I the only person reading all of this into the memo?

To answer the question above aircraft on loan to the UN for missions are usually painted white with 'UN' painted black on the side.

As I recall, UNSCOM, the UN commision set up to search out and destroy WMD in Iraq after the first Gulf War, had an arrangement for ordering up U-2 flights but these planes were never 'chopped' (the military term meaning put under someone else's control) to the UN. All UNSCOM received were DOD-selected images taken during the flights.

In other words, the whole Bush idea was pretty silly since everyone even remotely familiar with this type of operation knows that U-2s always remain under USA national control. If the record of the Bush/Blair conversation is true and I have no reason to doubt it is not, it only further underlines how little the White House understood the import of what it was contemplating.

Did Iraq even have missles capable of shooting down a U2? They fly mighty darn high.

From what I understand, most of Iraq's anti-aircraft missile batteries were relatively ancient SA-3's and their missiles were only capable of missile engagement altitudes of 25-60,000 feet. No SA-1's or SA-2's.

Thus, it would seem this scheme would only work if they flew the U2 at low altitudes where a U2 wouldn't even be useful.

Something's rather odd about all this.

This plot sounds a bit reminiscent of Operation Northwoods in 1962, plotted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nothing would surprise me.

http://drewlbucket.blogspot.com

This is a Northwoods copycat action. The evil fact is that there is no real difference to these conspirators between using a drone and an actual pilot (or between fictitious students flying over Cuba, or real students).

Missing from your analysis is also the obvious, that the US would itself shoot down the plane, and blame it on Hussein.

As for laws, the obvious one is Conspiracy to Defraud the United States.

Since we know that Bush and Blair were in fact bombing Iraq for a full year before the invasion date, so this was just an additional ILLEGAL incitement of war to those illegal acts.

"the whole Bush idea was pretty silly since everyone even remotely familiar with this type of operation knows that U-2s always remain under USA national control." -- Posted by Krojac

It only seems silly, since Bushoviks don't care whether their story is plausible or not -- they just use their hammer to bang that peg into the square hole, and then have their complicit press fawn on the lie.

There are hundreds such examples of that complicity by now. They spied on the UN, and nothing was said about it. Custer Battles has been a scandal on a giant scale for two years, and yet it only now reaches the public, on 60 MInutes. The warcrimes are ignored. So it doesn't matter if the ploy was transparent.

Blair would have been hung out to dry, so no wonder he didn't think it was a good idea.

Bush is not bound by or subject to any laws, treaties or agreements.

Krojac, thank you very much for answering my question.

Paint a plane to look like something it isn't and then use that to achieve a political/ military goal. Hmm. Maybe we could paint a coupla' planes to look like american airlines planes, crash them into the world trade center and then we could do what ever we want in the name of fighting terrrorism!

Oh wait. We already did!

Paint a plane to look like something it isn't and then use that to achieve a political/ military goal. Hmm. Maybe we could paint a coupla' planes to look like american airlines planes, crash them into the world trade center and then we could do what ever we want in the name of fighting terrrorism!

Oh wait. We already did!