More on the Flight of the Turkey:

[Theophylact]

A Baghdad Thanksgiving's Lingering Aftertaste

Some excerpts:

...Stars and Stripes is blowing the whistle on President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad, saying the cheering soldiers who met him were pre-screened and others showing up for a turkey dinner were turned away.

The newspaper, quoting two officials with the Army's 1st Armored Division in an article last week, reported that "for security reasons, only those preselected got into the facility during Bush's visit. . . . The soldiers who dined while the president visited were selected by their chain of command, and were notified a short time before the visit."

The paper also published a letter to the editor from Sgt. Loren Russell, who wrote of the heroism of his soldiers and then added: "[I]magine their dismay when they walked 15 minutes to the Bob Hope Dining Facility, only to find that they were turned away from their evening meal because they were in the wrong unit. . . . They understand that President Bush ate there and that upgraded security was required. But why were only certain units turned away?"

Russell added that his soldiers "chose to complain amongst themselves and eat MREs, even after the chow hall was reopened for 'usual business' at 9 p.m. As a leader myself, I'd guess that other measures could have been taken to allow for proper security and still let the soldiers have their meal."

[A]ir traffic controllers in Britain are seething over the flight, in which the president's 747, falsely identified as a Gulfstream, traveled through British airspace. Prospect, the controllers union in the United Kingdom, says the flight broke international regulations, posed a potential safety threat and exposed a weakness in the air defense system that could be exploited by terrorists.

"The overriding concern is if the president's men who did this can dupe air traffic control, what's to stop a highly organized terrorist group from duping air traffic control?" asked David Luxton, Prospect's national secretary. Luxton said the flight was in "breach" of regulations against filing false flight plans set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, which he said should apply to a military aircraft using civilian airspace.

Luxton said that by identifying itself as a Gulfstream V instead of the much larger 747, Air Force One could have put itself and other airplanes in danger. The Gulfstream can climb faster and maneuver more nimbly than a 747, which means controllers could have assumed the president's plane was capable of a collision-avoiding maneuver that it couldn't actually do. And the "wake vortex" of a 747, much larger than a Gulfstream's, could jeopardize smaller planes that were told by unsuspecting controllers to follow in the mislabeled plane's wake.

As it happens, Air Force One passed without incident. But Luxton said that's beside the point. "It's important air traffic control have an accurate picture of what's up there in the sky they're controlling," he said.

The White House has declined to elaborate further on the flight plan and other security measures for the trip.

[Warthog]

When you got possible guys who are willing to throw hand grenades into an HQ tent....

As for identifying itself as Gulfstream V..lol, that's pretty good.

AF 1 wouldn't have been in danger...any planes who got near it would've been "vectored" off by the F-16s flying along side, presenting no danger to anyone

[Optimus Prime]

Warthog, that isn't the main issue, it's the fact that the American government is constantly ignoring British rules, it can only get worse. I think we should break away from America as much as possible, they treat their "allies" with hardly any respect.

Look upon what they did to The Queen's gardens, without consulting anybody! No matter what you think, George W. Bush is not the most important person in the world and even if he was he does not have to act like an ignorant baboon just because he has the power. People look up to your country because of it's power over others, now do you believe your country should try and make itself a role model or just bully everyone into submission?

[J-Excel]

blah blah blah. Every silver lining has a cloud. The glass is half empty. Doom-and-gloom. Why is it the left has to try to turn anything positive into something negative? I hate their negativity. Freaking Doom-and-gloom-ocrats.

[Optimus Prime]

J-Excel, you can say this, but you cannot just turn a blind-eye to these things. You don't live in my country, you cannot possibly know what it's like to be treated as a second-hand country, ignored and blown away.

[J-Excel]

No one ignores England. Canada maybe, but not England. You're blowing it way out of proportion. Are you bitching about the identity of the aircraft? Gimme a break. AFAIK air traffic control identifies planes automagically. I'd even bet that the radio communication that they were a Gulfstream was made up in jest.

[Ed_S]

Sounds to me like England - or any other country - has every right to be seriously P.O.'d. Frankly, they should have taken action on the spot, and demanded that the aircraft land for absolute positive identification. If refused, they should have knocked it down. As I hope WE would!

An airplane mis-identified is clearly a threat and should be brought down by whatever means necessary.

After all, a large plane is a proven WMD, right?