Iraqi Jets Take to Air--So Do U.S. Warplanes : Military: Flights, even within Iraq’s own borders, are denounced as ‘a direct violation’ of cease-fire pact.

American fighter pilots flying out of central Saudi Arabia stepped up patrol missions over Iraq on Friday after U.S. intelligence reported that Iraqi air force jets have resumed some flight operations within their own borders.

A Bush Administration official called the Iraqi flights--involving about six fighter jets flying to and from airfields inside the country--”a direct violation” of the tentative cease-fire pact hammered out by Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf and his Iraqi counterparts.

The rapid American response, which came only a day after the Iraqi flights were detected, appears certain to put more pressure on the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who continues to battle Kurdish and Shiite Muslim insurgencies throughout his war-ravaged country.

On Friday, Kurdish rebels were reported to have captured the strategic Turkish-Iraqi border crossing town of Zakhu, and other reports told of continued heavy fighting in southern Iraq and battle damage to Muslim holy shrines 60 miles from Baghdad.

Schwarzkopf, the commander of allied troops in the region, sent messengers Friday to warn the Iraqi military command that continued flights of Iraqi aircraft could jeopardize the tentative cease-fire accord between the allies and Iraq.

At the same time, military commanders ordered significantly increased sorties by American F-15E and F-16 aircraft from the largest air base in the Persian Gulf theater of operations, said Col. Cash Jaszczak, commander of the 4404th Tactical Fighter Wing. The American warplanes roared into the skies over Iraq throughout the day.

“He (Hussein) is trying to do something to waffle,” Jaszczak said in an interview at the allied air base in central Saudi Arabia. “We are demonstrating our presence . . . our resolve.”

At the Pentagon, a top military official confirmed that U.S. air patrols have been increased but declined to explain why. Another senior defense official, however, said the stepped-up flights were intended to convey the implicit threat that any Iraqi aircraft going aloft could be shot down.

“They have to think about it,” said the official.

The allies’ decision to increase aircraft operations is the latest move in an escalating war of nerves between the U.S.-led coalition and Hussein’s government, which has been slow to submit to a range of cease-fire conditions.

On Thursday, a senior military official in Saudi Arabia said U.S. ground forces had been sent back to reoccupy forward positions in Iraq from which they had begun to withdraw. That move came a day after President Bush, in an apparent expansion of the cease-fire terms, warned Hussein that his forces should not use helicopters to quell the widespread uprisings against his regime.

And Administration officials warned Baghdad last week that the use of chemical weapons against insurgents could bring a resumption of allied air strikes against Iraq.

On Friday, Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. troops are moving around in southern Iraq to “demonstrate our presence.” But he cautioned against speculation about possible military operations in Iraq.

Pentagon officials said the Iraqis are continuing to use helicopters as gunships against insurgents despite the President’s warning that Iraq’s use of the choppers in combat roles is unacceptable.

Officials have acknowledged that the use of some helicopters was permitted by the allies under the terms of the temporary cease-fire. But in an interview Wednesday, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said the agreement clearly prohibits any flights of Iraq’s fixed-wing aircraft.

“If we thought there was any threat to allied forces,” Iraqi aircraft would “obviously” be subject to being shot down, Cheney said.

Nevertheless, officials said that since Thursday morning, roughly half a dozen Iraqi MIG-21 and MIG-23 fighter jets have taken off from bases in western Iraq and made “quick movements” toward the east, where they landed at a base west of Baghdad.

Pentagon officials said they believe that the movements are designed to consolidate what remains of the Iraqi air force at bases where the planes can be maintained. They said there has been no sign that the Iraqis are loading explosive munitions on the aircraft or that they intend to use them against either insurgent or allied troops.

Allied warplanes have continued to fly reconnaissance and surveillance missions over much of Iraq, and the movement of the Iraqi planes apparently was observed by U.S. AWACS electronic surveillance aircraft.

Meanwhile, Gen. Merrill A. McPeak, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, told reporters at the Pentagon that while the Gulf War was in progress, allied jets dropped 88,500 tons of bombs on Iraq and Kuwait.

About 6,520 tons of those munitions were precision-guided “smart bombs,” which the Air Force credits with tipping the balance decisively in favor of the allies.

McPeak said that in 43 days of air operations, the allies used against Iraq “half-again as much”--roughly 150%--of the number of “smart bombs” dropped on Vietnam during that nine-year conflict.

“This is the first time that a field army has been defeated by air power,” McPeak said in a briefing on the achievements of the allied air war. “It was a remarkable performance by the coalition air forces.”

McPeak said the Iraqi air force, which began the conflict with 950 aircraft and ended with slightly more than 700 planes still in the country, will pose no threat to the region “for another generation.”

“A generation of pilots and crew chiefs and mechanics and air leaders has certainly vanished,” said McPeak. “I think it will be a long time before they constitute a significant threat again.”

McPeak said allied warplanes are “on orbit right now,” adding that they could resume combat operations at any time.

“We can do whatever Gen. Schwarzkopf and the President want us to do,” McPeak said.

Healy reported from Washington and Wilkinson reported from Saudi Arabia.