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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (17729)	6/17/2005 7:22:30 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 20773

I don't think there is any evidence that Saddam fired on British or American planes. All of the responses were from the Iraq radar being turned on, or locked on, but not from missles being fired. I was able to find a nice synopsis by USAToday. It covers both. It's also a nice article in that it point out the disagreement within the Security Council as to whether the no-fly zones were legal [not that the US cares about such minor details]. usatoday.com No-fly zones not likely to trigger invasion By Dave Moniz and Bill Nichols, USA TODAY Iraq continues to target American and British warplanes patrolling the northern and southern zones of the country, but the skirmishing is unlikely to provoke a U.S. invasion, Pentagon officials and military analysts say. The exception might be if the Iraqis kill or capture an American or British pilot. Such an event would be a serious provocation, a senior Defense official said Thursday. The official stopped short of saying that would trigger a U.S. attack against Iraq. Since the 1991 Gulf War, the United States and Great Britain have flown daily combat patrols over huge swaths of northern and southern Iraq known as the "no-fly zones." The patrols are designed to ground Saddam Hussein's air force and protect Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north of Iraq. Pentagon officials say that although shootings in the no-fly zones seem to be escalating, they fit a pattern of peaks and valleys over two years. The Iraqis fired upon or trained anti-aircraft radar on U.S. or British warplanes 366 times in 2000, 527 times in 2001 and 205 times so far this year, according to the Pentagon. Since Nov. 8, Iraq has fired on U.S. aircraft in the zones 11 times. The U.S. has responded by bombing command centers that coordinate anti-aircraft fire. "I would say most recently, every time we're over Iraq, we receive some kind of fire," says Capt. Kendall Card, commander of the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier in the Gulf region. U.S. officials say they are not sure why Iraq continues to fire on American and British warplanes. "Right now, a bunch of folks are scratching their heads, trying to figure out the spirit of Iraq's intentions," says Steve Baker, a military analyst at the Center for Defense Information. "Saddam has everything to lose by doing this." Saddam has never recognized the right of U.S. and Britain warplanes to patrol the zones, and the Iraqi government routinely claims that the planes are killing civilians. Iraq's decision to continue targeting American planes has given the Pentagon an excuse to begin dismantling the network of surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns placed around Iraq. Since August, the U.S. has retaliated by striking key air defense centers south and west of Baghdad. In the past two days, the U.S. has struck three air defense command posts and two radar sites. U.S. and British warplanes struck sites Wednesday near Al Kut and Basra, military officials say. Baghdad said the attacks were against "civilian installations in Basra." Some believe the U.S. bombing strikes are part of a low-grade military campaign to prepare the battlefield for a full-scale invasion that will come if current U.N. weapons inspections fail to disarm Saddam. The United States has recently begun dropping leaflets instructing Iraqi soldiers to refrain from firing anti-aircraft weapons. If war erupts, U.S. plans are to try to persuade Iraq's 400,000-man army to remain neutral. U.S. officials argued earlier this month that any Iraqi firing on American and British warplanes is a violation of the new United Nations resolution on Iraq. Bush administration officials admit privately, however, that they have little chance of convincing the U.N. Security Council of that. There are deep disagreements on the council about whether the no-fly zones are legal. They are not covered in any U.N. resolution on Iraq. Security Council diplomats say that Britain provided assurances before the most recent resolution passed that skirmishes in the no-fly zones would not be the basis for using force against Iraq. Earlier this fall, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered a change in U.S. policy to allow American fighter jets to retaliate against any Iraqi anti-aircraft facility that threatened U.S. warplanes. Despite more than a decade of trying, the Iraqis have not shot down any manned planes. Iraq has reportedly offered up to $25,000 for any captured U.S. airman.