State blocked US planes carrying landmines

20/04/03 00:00

By Pat Leahy The Sunday Business Post (Ireland)

More than 50,000 United States military personnel passed through Shannon Airport between the start of 2002 and early March of this year, according to documents obtained from the Department of Transport.

The Sunday Business Post has learned that the government refused permission for a small number of US flights through Irish airspace because they were carrying landmines.

Permission to land or overfly was granted to more than 200 aircraft carrying weapons in the first three months of this year.

Extensive documentation made available by the Department of Transport under the Freedom of Information Act reveals a high level of use of the airport by the US military even before the preparations for the war in Iraq.

Usage accelerated significantly in the early part of this year.

More than 38,000 US personnel moved through the airport last year. In January this year, when the use of Shannon became a source of controversy, more than 9,000 US soldiers passed through, most of them on their way to Kuwait or Germany, according to flight details logged with the department. Usage dropped in February to just over 5,000, and 1,500 passed through in the first week of March.

E-mail correspondence from Aer Rianta in Shannon to the department in Dublin - a weekly bulletin detailing `Shannon military ops' - tracked the volume of troops moving though the airport.

A series of documents released by the department detailed requests by US carriers for permission to carry "munitions of war" through Shannon, or to fly through Irish airspace carrying weapons.

Under air navigation regulations the permission of the Minister for Transport must be obtained before civilian aircraft can carry such cargoes.

Minister for Transport Seamus Brennan requested a briefing note on this issue last October.

The briefing note supplied on October 15 (and stamped `seen by the minister') makes the legal situation clear, though US carriers were transporting munitions of war without permission until mid- January this year, when the Department of Transport told them they needed permission.

From mid-January on US carriers began routinely to request permission to transport weapons through Shannon.

Scrutiny of the hundreds of applications shows that most were travelling with personal weapons to Kuwait or Germany.

Other destinations included Jordan, Romania (where the US was training anti-Saddam Iraqis), Qatar (where military headquarters were based), Britain, Cyprus and Bahrain.

A small number of flights carrying weapons were from Israel to the United States.

Aside from personal firearms and ammunition, weapons transported included spare parts for mortars, generic "weapons spare parts", radar target- s e ekers and helicopter parts.

Four flights were refused permission to overfly because they were carrying landmines, in breach of the Ottawa Convention on the use of landmines, which Ireland is bound to uphold.

A small number of flights landed without permission.

From January 1 to March 25 this year the Minister for Transport gave permission for 200 civilian aircraft carrying munitions of war to pass through Irish airspace. Of these, 136 landed and 64 over flew. Only 30 aircraft sought and were granted permission to overfly last year, and only one landed, though it now appears that the law was not being applied to many of the troop-carrying aircraft that passed through Shannon last year.
These regulations only apply to civilian aircraft, as the transit of military aircraft is a matter for the Department of Foreign Affairs, which has repeatedly confirmed that permission for military aircraft to land or overfly is only granted on condition that they are unarmed and do not form part of any military operation.

The department maintained this position even after the commencement of hostilities in Iraq. After a special debate, the government secured Dáil backing for its decision to provide facilities at Shannon to the US government.

The Taoiseach insisted that this meant Ireland was supporting the United States in its military campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime.