1000 Or More SA-2s Have Troops, Civilians, Nervous

It's been more than 90 days since American and British forces booted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad. Still, some one-thousand of his surface-to-air missiles are scattered throughout the war-torn country. Now, American and UN disarmament teams are in Iraq, trying to figure out how to dismantle the weapons. An official with UNICEF says one of the missiles has already gone off, leaving its rails and slamming into a nearby home. Everybody inside was killed, according to the UNICEF official.

One of the Soviet-made SA-2 missiles may have been fired at an American C-130 Hercules transport Wednesday. The aircraft jinked around the missile's path, firing its IR flairs to distract the seeker element. The evasive maneuvers apparently worked. The C-130 wasn't hit.

One American soldier who specializes in disarming live ordnance says the Russian SA-2 missiles are "all over the place." He's worried because he says the missile's fuel is caustic and liable to burn anyone trying to salvage pieces of the missile for sale on the black market. The disarmament specialist said the missile itself isn't all that stable.

FMI: www.defenselink.mil