U.S. Strikes Back as Iraq Defies ‘No-Fly’ Zone

U.S. warplanes pounded three Iraqi military targets with missiles and laser-guided smart bombs Wednesday as President Saddam Hussein expanded his latest show of defiance to a “no-fly” zone encompassing southern Iraq.

The Pentagon said Baghdad provoked the confrontation by firing six to eight surface-to-air missiles at a British aircraft. U.S. officials reported no casualties among the 20 U.S. warplanes and four British bombers patrolling the region and said the targets were apparently hit.

Hussein’s second provocation in three days reflects a new gamble by the Iraqi leader to use force in an effort to get the United States to respond in kind, according to Western analysts. It is a pattern that over time could become costly for the Clinton administration diplomatically, militarily and financially.

Baghdad appears to be calculat-ing that a prolonged series of U.S. strikes will fail to achieve the American goals of either overturning the regime or pressuring Iraq into cooperating with the outside world.

A stalemate in Washington’s new “containment-plus” strategy, which calls for greater use of U.S. military muscle to deter Iraqi aggression, could increase pressure on Washington to look for alternative strategies, Hussein’s regime apparently hopes.

“Ultimately, what Hussein is trying to do is make it harder and harder to sustain the no-fly zones,” said Kenneth Pollack, an Iraq expert at the National Defense University in Washington. “If the U.S. starts dropping bombs on Iraq every other day, he’s counting on the rest of the world saying: ‘What is the U.S. doing? What is the legal basis of these no-fly zones? And isn’t there a better way to deal with Iraq?’ ”

Under this scenario, the military costs and diplomatic pressures could strengthen the position of U.N. Security Council members Russia, France and China, which favor negotiations with Iraq rather than punitive actions. All three are also prepared to deal with the current government in Baghdad rather than try to replace it.

Already, Iraq’s strategy has achieved one goal: diverting world attention from Hussein’s refusal to allow U.N. inspectors to resume their work overseeing the dismantling of his weapons of mass destruction.

Baghdad has also increased the need for the United States to maintain its air presence in the Persian Gulf.

“Before Operation Desert Fox, we had a low level of sorties over both northern and southern Iraq--limited in numbers and in hours, as it was such a strain on the Air Force,” Pollack said. “Now we have to keep a higher number of aircraft.”

Iraq would clearly like to shoot down a U.S. or British aircraft. Doing so would challenge the allies’ control of 60% of Iraqi airspace--and demonstrate to both a domestic and international audience that Iraq is still a regional power.

Baghdad claimed Wednesday to have downed an aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition over the southern no-fly zone. It made a similar claim Monday when its forces opened fire from the no-fly zone protecting Kurdish territory in Iraq’s north. Both claims were vehemently denied by the White House and Pentagon.

“That’s nonsense,” David Leavy, spokesman for the National Security Council, said of the latest claim. “And I hope the Iraqi propaganda machine will take a day off for New Year’s.”

The southern no-fly zone has been in place since 1992. It originally covered territory from the 32nd parallel to Iraq’s borders with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, an area dominated by Shiite Muslims. It was extended in 1996 to the 33rd parallel, which goes right up to the outskirts of Baghdad.

U.S. officials say Iraq’s long-term goal is reflected in the emerging pattern of provocations rather than in the actual act of firing at U.S. and British warplanes. The SA-6 missiles used Wednesday by Iraq have a range that did not seriously threaten the high-flying British aircraft.

The United States expects Baghdad to engage in further provocations in the coming weeks, the officials said.

“Iraq will keep flapping around to get a chunk of time on CNN and to keep the issue of Iraq alive,” a senior administration official said. “Saddam’s trying to see if he can get more sympathy.”

So far, Baghdad appears to be failing on that score.

President Clinton did not comment on the latest confrontation because he does not want to become enmeshed in a war of words that might further escalate tensions, U.S. officials said.

But in a half-hour telephone conversation Wednesday, Clinton and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin agreed that they will not allow differences over Iraq to hurt U.S.-Russian relations.

“Yeltsin’s message was that they should put their differences in perspective because they have bigger issues they need to work on together in 1999,” the senior administration official said. “Russia’s irritation over Desert Fox was something to put behind them.”

Moscow strongly criticized this month’s punitive 70-hour bombing blitz, and Russia recalled its ambassador to Washington to protest the use of force.

Although the two leaders did not discuss the specifics of the latest U.S.-Iraq encounters, Clinton expressed “concern about the continuing threat” that the Hussein regime poses to the region, Leavy said. He said U.S. and British pilots will enforce the flight bans that limit Baghdad’s ability to use air power against either its own people or its neighbors.

Clinton also told Yeltsin that coalition aircraft will take “necessary precautions” to protect their mission, Leavy said.