U.S. Suspends U2 Flights After Threat
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraqi fighter jets threatened two American U-2 surveillance planes, forcing them to abort their mission and return to base, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday.
A Pentagon official said the decision to end the mission "in the interest of safety." The U-2 planes were flying missions at 2 a.m. Iraqi time for the U.N. weapons inspectors when Iraq launched fighter jets. According to two of the officials, the threat was directed against one of the two planes, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Multiple flights are permitted under a U.N. Security Council resolution approved last November, and the Bush administration sought clarification from U.N. inspectors after the U-2 flights were suspended. Their surveillance opertions are considered a major tool in checking on Iraq's weaponry, but there are other means, as well.
The U.N. inspection agency, known, as UNMOVIC, had given advance notice to Iraq of the flights, said the U.S. official. The Iraqi threat is fresh evidence of Baghdad's unwillingness to cooperate with U.N. inspectors, another U.S. official said. Two American U-2 planes were already in the air, the senior official said. He said they were the seventh and eighth sent on a surveillance assignment since the council approved the resolution unanimously, and that the flights had been coordinated with the U.N. inspection agency. But Iraq "raised a fuss," this official said, and the two flights were recalled.
American diplomats are checking with the U.N. agency before resuming U-2 flights, the official said. The dispute punctuated a behind-the-scenes effort by the United States and Britain to win support for a new resolution designed to back the use of force as a last resort to disarm Iraq.
U-2 flights are conducted as part of an elaborate inspection arrangement designed to determine whether President Saddam Hussein has secretly stored chemical and biological weapons in defiance of U.N. resolutions. Typically, Iraq is notified in advance of overflights of Iraqi territory.
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