Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: wb9omc@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: SR-71
Message-ID: <1990Aug14.034539.10807@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 14 Aug 90 03:45:39 GMT
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From: wb9omc@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick)
>>From: raven!tobin@ncar.ucar.edu (Mike Tobin)
>Anybody have any thoughts (or better yet, knowledge) on whether or not
>the absence of the SR-71 has made any difference in what we've known about
>Iraq's activities?    
	Mike, there are seven or eight SR71 airframes that are currently
	*unnaccounted for*.  That is, they are NOT on display anywhere,
	and they were in existance at the time of the so-called
	retirement.  The Public Affairs office of the 9th Strategic
	reconnaissance wing refuses to divulge their whereabouts.
	While the forward detachment at RAF Mildenhall, England, seems
	to have shut down (emphasis on SEEMS...), SR71's have apparently
	flown out of the base at Incirclik, Turkey in past years.

	I should add that this "unnaccounting" was as of the end of
	June of this year.  I have no newer info. than that.

	My suspicion?  Aurora isn't quite operational yet, so a number of
	SR's were help back from retirement.....that's a SWAG.

	(Scientific Wild Ass Guess)   :-)

Duane