Introduction

Extract

How quickly one forgets. On Sunday, July 3, 1988, an Iran Air A300 Airbus, with 290 persons on board, was shot out of the sky by two surface-to-air missiles launched from the U.S.S. Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser on duty with the United States Persian Gulf/Middle East Force. The first reports from Washington were that the Vincennes had acted in self-defense against hostile Iranian aircraft. Some 12 hours later, the Pentagon admitted that the Vincennes had made a mistake, that the aircraft it saw approaching was a wide-bodięd airliner on a regularly scheduled flight, not an F-14 Tomcat with hostile intent and capability.