What Led to Airstrikes

In January, Iraq directed more fire at U.S. and British planes patrolling the southern no-fly zone than in all of 2000. The pattern continued into this month, and while no allied planes were hit, it was clear to the pilots that Iraq’s ability to coordinate its fire had improved greatly, increasing the risk that eventually one of the planes would be downed. That challenge couldn’t be ignored, and President Bush, with British support, responded properly. In the heaviest attack on Iraq since December 1998, five radar and command and control sites--four just north of the no-fly zone--were struck with precision-guided weapons.

Responses followed a now-familiar script. China, France and Russia--influenced perhaps not only by worry over U.S. militarism but by possibilities of commercial deals once economic sanctions against Iraq are lifted--expressed indignation. Arab states, some of which would be early victims of any renewed Iraqi belligerence, expressed outrage. Baghdad claimed that a number of civilians died in the attacks, and critics deplored what they like to call America’s bullying unilateralism.

A few facts need to be recalled. The northern and southern no-fly zones were set up a decade ago not to flaunt allied power but to prevent Iraqi helicopters from killing Kurds and Shiites, the most oppressed and restive of Saddam Hussein’s subjects. When the patrols are shot at they shoot back, events that have become so routine as to go virtually unnoticed. Between Jan. 20, when Bush took office, and last Friday, allied planes attacked Iraqi targets four times.

Maintaining the no-fly zones is an adjunct to trying to contain an Iraqi regime that is as great a menace to its own citizens as to its neighbors. But it is not in itself a policy; that is something the Bush administration says it is working on. A new approach is likely to include an offer to ease all but the military sanctions on Iraq in hopes of denying Baghdad its claimed status as the victim of an inhumane embargo. This claim has won it considerable sympathy. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will sound out responses to the new administration’s approach when he starts his tour of the Middle East at the end of the week.

Whatever happens with the sanctions, it’s virtually certain that President Bush’s first encounter with Hussein won’t be his last. Arms experts fear that in the two years since Iraq expelled U.N. weapons inspectors it has gone far to rebuild its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. Bush has already warned of “appropriate” action if that proves true. What Bush needs now is a coherent strategy, one that doesn’t play into Hussein’s attempts to portray himself as a victim.