Little by little the blanks are filling in on the curious puzzle of why Iraq's air defenses in the no-fly zone always miss our warplanes. From an informative story by Dexter Filkins in Saturday's New York Times:

"American military officials say their planes are fired on nearly every time they cross into Iraqi airspace, usually by relatively inaccurate anti-aircraft guns but often with missiles.

"While the Iraqis have managed to shoot down at least one unpiloted Predator drone, they have failed so far to destroy a single American plane since the war.

"'We call it the golden BB,' said one American pilot here. 'They are praying for that lucky shot.'"

On the evidence of Mr. Filkins's story, what's really going on is a long-running live-fire maneuver of increasing intensity:

"With a 700 percent annual turnover rate among pilots who patrol the areas, nearly all of America's combat pilots, by some estimates, have already flown missions over Iraq."

Over the past decade there have been some 21,000 flights, with never a golden BB. Still, you can certainly blame a fellow for trying, and so our pilots retaliate regularly. If you can believe the Pentagon, they rarely miss the BB gunners.