Iraq Seeking to Provoke New Conflict, U.S. Charges

The United States on Saturday accused the regime of President Saddam Hussein of looking for a new confrontation after Iraqi aircraft repeatedly tried to lure American and British warplanes into missile traps and Iraq’s vice president openly threatened coalition air patrols.

Since the end of Operation Desert Fox, the Clinton administration has been increasingly concerned about a pattern of incidents, including challenges to the “no-fly” zones over Iraq and attempts to attract coalition aircraft into areas where Iraq could fire missiles at them, according to senior U.S. officials.

And on Saturday--just hours after Iraq claimed that its antiaircraft gunners had driven off an attack by “enemy” warplanes that flew in from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia--Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Iraq will fire on warplanes violating its airspace.

In an interview with a Qatar television station, Ramadan was asked if Iraq would accept the overflights of U.S. and British aircraft that patrol no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.

“We say it clearly: Any violations of our airspace cannot but be confronted by Iraqi fire,” Ramadan said.

The official Iraqi News Agency did not identify the nationality of the aircraft involved in Saturday’s alleged attack, but it usually uses the word “enemy” to describe warplanes from the U.S. and Britain. The U.S. has aircraft in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Britain also bases aircraft in Kuwait.

In Washington, National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said the threat would not compel the United States to change its policy in the region.

“We will continue to enforce the no-fly zones in the north and the south,” Crowley said. “Iraq knows that it should not interfere with those flights, and our pilots can act in self-defense if they feel threatened at any time.”

“Hussein wants to maintain a sense of confrontation,” a senior administration official said. “He’s trying to create a sympathy card. It also helps to keep alive a sense of Iraq, the unconquered.”

Crowley said U.S. aircraft had flown over Iraq on Saturday but “reported no incidents of fire directed against them,” although one aircraft “reported antiaircraft fire well off in the distance.”

Britain, meanwhile, has warned its aircraft will shoot back if they are attacked by Iraq, British television reported today.

BBC television quoted Britain’s Defense Ministry as saying its Tornado warplanes will fire back if attacked by Iraq.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said in London on Saturday that a British pilot “did sight antiaircraft fire, but he did not consider it hostile.”

Other provocations--including Baghdad’s rejection of all U.N. weapons inspections after the punishing four-day air attacks by U.S. and Britain and the regime’s refusal last week to allow any more United Nations planes to fly to Iraq--had already led Washington to conclude that a second confrontation is virtually inevitable. The only issues are timing and the specific flash point, U.S. officials acknowledge.

However, the U.S. is now concerned that a clash may come sooner rather than later--without a chance for renewed diplomacy to pressure Hussein to comply with disarmament of his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and his ballistic missiles.

The no-fly zones “are important to constraining the threat Hussein [poses] to neighbors and his own people, especially in the north. We will take whatever action is necessary to protect our pilots,” the senior U.S. official said.

In Baghdad, however, Iraq charged that the U.S.-led coalition was the aggressor.

“Formations of enemy planes . . . attacked one of our air defense positions, which confronted them and forced them to drop their load indiscriminately,” a military spokesman told the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday. Baghdad provided no specifics on where the alleged exchange took place.

U.S. officials denied that there was any exchange of fire by coalition aircraft Saturday. A Pentagon official said none of the coalition warplanes reported either being hit or being in danger.

Instead, U.S. officials said Iraqi aircraft were skirting the 33rd parallel just south of Baghdad that marks the start of the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, which is dominated by Shiite Muslims. Iraqi warplanes are prohibited from crossing the 33rd parallel or into a similar zone over northern Kurdistan.

Iraq’s provocation was apparently aimed at getting American and British aircraft to cross over areas where Iraq has air defense systems deployed and could open fire at them.

“They have their fighters patrolling just along the edge of the 33rd parallel without penetrating the south to see if they can get us to come after them. The goal is to lure us into a SAM trap,” said the U.S. official, referring to Iraq’s surface-to-air missiles. “It’s clear to us since the end of Desert Fox that Iraq has made a decision to challenge the no-fly zones.”

Iraq now seems intent on making Washington appear to be trigger-happy after the United States announced a revised strategy of using military muscle whenever necessary to contain Iraq, a policy known as “containment-plus.”

“Saddam may be looking for the next stage of confrontation in an attempt to eliminate coalition control of the airspace over Iraq,” said Judith Yaphe, an Iraq specialist at the National Defense University in Washington.

The no-fly zones have limited the regime’s ability to control what goes on in the Kurdish-dominated north and predominantly Shiite south, the two strongholds of ethnic dissidents.

Hussein “may be trying to trigger an incident by tricking coalition aircraft to drop munitions over an innocent Iraqi village to show the coalition playing fast and loose in the air,” Yaphe said. “He wants to stage an accident that is seen as mindless, senseless flying by cowboy pilots to create an international furor--and to question why the no-fly zones are there.”

Baghdad may also be playing to questions over the international legitimacy of the no-fly zones because--unlike with the weapons inspection program, for instance--there are no U.N. Security Council resolutions mandating their enforcement.

Washington has long argued that Resolution 688, which stipulates that Iraq cannot hurt its own people, provides the legal basis for the no-fly zones. Yet U.S. officials are also aware that this position is not universally acknowledged, and it will probably become an issue even among some U.S. allies in 1991’s Operation Desert Storm. Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, triggering the Persian Gulf War.

Some observers saw Iraq’s latest challenge to the no-fly zones as notable because of the timing: During the 1997 Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, known as the hajj, Hussein violated the no-fly zones and flew pilgrims both to and from Mecca. The pilgrimage begins in early 1999.

Iraq’s claim of attacks by coalition aircraft Saturday is the fourth alleged incident in a week.

Baghdad claimed Tuesday that American and British aircraft fired two “stray missiles” at air defense systems around Basra, Iraq’s only major port. State-controlled media showed pictures and film of the aftermath, although there was no way to tell if the incident happened Tuesday or during the four-day U.S. and British military assault.

Again, the U.S. and Britain denied anything other than normal patrols by aircraft over both northern and southern areas.

Iraq also charged that U.S. and British aircraft violated Iraq’s southern airspace Wednesday and Thursday.

Washington countered that overflights are exactly its mandate.

“We operate in airspace in the north and south all the time. That’s what enforcing no-fly zones is all about,” the senior administration source said.

U.S. officials are concerned about Hussein’s game plan, and they moved Saturday to put him on notice that another confrontation would also be costly.

“He apparently wants to maintain a sense that Iraq under siege is engaged in some kind of active resistance,” the administration official added. “This is not a fight he can win.”

In Baghdad, the parliament issued a decree Saturday reiterating Iraq’s refusal to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into the country.

Parliament Speaker Sadoun Hammadi traveled to Amman, Jordan, to attend a meeting today of Arab officials to discuss the raids.

Hammadi said he will ask the officials to agree to break U.N. sanctions on Iraq and make the U.S. and Britain accountable for the recent attacks.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.