U.S. Jets Hit Missile Sites in Northern Iraq

Tensions rose in the Persian Gulf on Monday as U.S. jet fighters bombarded two Iraqi missile sites in the northern “no-fly” zone and Kuwait put some security forces on maximum alert in response to what it called “dangerous” threats from Baghdad.

Three weeks after U.S.-British strikes in Operation Desert Fox, Iraq’s defiant actions continued to rile both its neighbors and Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright scheduled a late January trip to Egypt and Saudi Arabia to consult with friendly Arab leaders.

In another development, chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler said in Washington that his U.N. Special Commission, or UNSCOM, is alive despite Iraq’s declaration that it can never return. Butler also brushed aside suggestions that he should resign as head of the panel mandated to strip Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

As the Iraqi military, which has pledged to President Saddam Hussein to stand up to U.S. and British air patrols, has played cat-and-mouse games with allied aircraft, political leaders in Baghdad have kept up scathing verbal attacks on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, its two main detractors in the Arab world.

U.S. military spokesmen said the targeting of the missile sites, which was the fifth armed confrontation over Iraqi skies in two weeks, occurred near the city of Mosul.

“In both cases, coalition aircraft were illuminated by Iraqi air defense missile systems,” said Army Lt. Col. Steve Campbell, a Defense Department spokesman quoted by Reuters news agency.

In one case, two U.S. F-15 warplanes responded by dropping two precision-guided bombs at the missile site, he said. In the second incident, an F-16 fired a High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile, or HARM. The U.S. warplanes returned safely to their base in Incirlik, Turkey.

There was no immediate word on damage to the Iraqi missile sites.

To the south, Kuwaiti military units were placed on high alert in response to an Iraqi parliament resolution Sunday holding that the Saudi and Kuwaiti regimes must bear responsibility for last month’s U.S.-British attacks.

The declaration also asked Hussein to resist all “unjust” U.N. Security Council resolutions.

During the debate that led up to the resolution, several lawmakers said Baghdad would be justified in rescinding its 1994 recognition of Kuwait’s sovereignty. Iraq was obliged to renounce any claim to Kuwait under the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but it did so reluctantly.

Kuwait said Monday that it will file a complaint to the United Nations about the parliamentary debate, and it termed the statements a “dangerous escalation” by the Iraqi side.

For Kuwaitis, the Iraqi saber-rattling has brought back bitter memories of the tense days before Iraq’s invasion in 1990.

The Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Watan said it seemed that Hussein was preparing to reassert his claim to Kuwait. Already, Hussein has “restored things in the region to how they were on the eve of Aug. 2, 1990,” the paper said, and is embarking on a “new campaign of lies” about the emirate.

In Washington, Butler rejected suggestions that he should resign and that his organization, UNSCOM, is in effect dead.

After last month’s military campaign, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz said UNSCOM would never be permitted back in Iraq because it was a gang of spies.

“UNSCOM is not dead. UNSCOM is alive and well in New York,” Butler told a gathering of nonproliferation experts. He said leaders of Security Council member states, including permanent members the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, are working on how to alter UNSCOM’s makeup, but he declared that there is unanimity among all members that inspections should continue.

Although Butler retains the confidence of the U.S., he has been under fire from other U.N. member states, notably Russia and France, because the Iraqis have said they will refuse to deal with him.

Butler’s position was further jeopardized last week by published reports of UNSCOM intelligence cooperation with the United States.

He said he is suspending flights by American U-2 spy planes over Iraq while the Security Council debates the monitoring operation, according to Reuters news agency.

Butler said a long-term monitoring system to ensure that Iraq remains free of weapons of mass destruction “would have to be bigger in scope, range, staffing” than the existing system, which was put in place in 1994.

Also in Washington on Monday, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said the U.S. government had credible information that the Iraqi regime has executed almost 500 military officers and civilian political prisoners during the past two months.

Rubin said the reported executions “evince a profound disregard by the Iraqi regime for human life, human rights and political and religious freedom.”

“We deplore and condemn in the strongest terms this reported activity, and we call on the government of Iraq to allow human rights monitors to enter Iraq,” he said.

Times staff writer Tyler Marshall in Washington contributed to this report.

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How U.S. Reacts

U.S. planes attacked two Iraqi missile sites in the northern “no-fly” zone Monday after Iraqi radar “painted” American aircraft. It was the fifth such clash with Baghdad in two weeks.

[1] Iraqi radar looks on to aircraft in a process known as painting (considered a prelude to possible attack).

[2] The aircraft fires a High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM), which locks on to the enemy radar signal and uses it as a guide to destroy the source.

Source: Department of Defense