Iraq Permits Flight by U-2 After Warnings
Iraq permitted a U-2 spy plane for the United Nations to fly over its territory last weekend in the wake of Security Council warnings of serious consequences if Baghdad interfered with aircraft, a U.N. official said Monday.
“The schedule of surveillance flights has progressed and will progress as planned,” said Tim Trevan, spokesman for the special U.N. commission in charge of scrapping Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
“We are not letting what Iraqi authorities say affect our programming,” he added.
Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Abdul Amir Anbari said Monday that Baghdad’s foreign minister made a pledge not to interfere with such flights in a letter to the Security Council. On Friday, Iraq had said it could not guarantee the safety of the flights and warned of “unfortunate incidents,” saying the spy plane might be confused with Iranian fighters. One of the latter crashed or was shot down earlier this month.
The Security Council threatened Iraq with violence if it interfered with the twice weekly U-2 flights, which weapons inspectors use to map sites and hunt for hidden arms that Iraq is supposed to destroy under the Gulf War cease-fire resolution.
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