Word: exocet
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Iraq, which took responsibility for the attack, also declared that six other "enemy" craft were hit. Iran charged that the Antigoni was destroyed by a French-manufactured Exocet missile, the same weapon used by Argentina with devastating effect against British ships during the 1982 Falklands war. That additional charge remains unproved, but there can be no doubt that the sinking of the Antigoni represented a dangerous escalation in the three-year war between Iran and Iraq for control of the northern tip of the gulf...
Iraq began putting new pressure on Iran in October, when the Baghdad government took delivery from France of five Exocet-equipped Super Etendard fighter-bombers. The Iraqis then said they had mined approaches to Bandar-Khomeini. Iraq also threatened to bomb a nearby petrochemical plant, as well as an Iranian oil-exporting facility in the gulf. In an attempt to cut off Iran's vital resources, the Iraqis have fired on numerous other foreign freighters in recent weeks...
...Khomeini, deep within the war zone, have been ordered to travel only in convoys. Lifeboats are kept half lowered, and special teams of Iranian soldiers armed with antiaircraft weapons stand guard on deck. But those safeguards are of little help against guided-missile attacks. In addition to the sophisticated Exocet, Iraq has an arsenal of French-made AS. 11 and AS. 12 missiles that are more than a match for freighter hulls...
...have been drafted by France, to be put before the United Nations Security Council. To help placate Iran, the resolution also condemns Iraqi bombing of civilian targets in Iran. Yet the Iranians, who are angry at France for selling Iraq five Super Etendard fighter-bombers as well as Exocet air-to-surface missiles, were not impressed. Tehran still insists that the price of peace with Iraq is the ouster of the man who started the war, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein...
Concerns about the delivery of the jets stem from an all-too-plausible scenario. Iraq already possesses up to 40 French Exocet air-to-surface missiles, the weapon that won headlines last year when Argentina used it successfully to sink two British ships in the Falklands war. Once the Super Etendards, which can fly up to 733 m.p.h. at low altitudes and have a radius of 530 miles without refueling, are armed with the Exocets, the Iraqis will be better able to threaten Iran's oil exports. Though the missiles cannot knock out the installations at Kharg island, which...