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U.S. and British Warplanes Strike Iraq
WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. and British warplanes launched a major strike Friday against three air-defense sites in southern Iraq in response to recent controversial Iraqi attacks on coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone, Pentagon officials said.
The raids, involving about 50 aircraft - including tankers and other support aircraft - were the heaviest against Iraq by coalition forces in six months.
It was the second raid this week and was the most intensive since February 16th when allied planes attacked air defense targets near Baghdad, according to BBC's online service.
All aircraft returned safely, a Pentagon official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said the raid was in response to "recent increases in air defense firings against coalition aircraft," with targets including, "two communications nodes and surface-to-air missile sites."
Damage to the targets is still being assessed, the official said.
A second Pentagon official said targets included a communications node, a surface-to-air missile site and a radar site, AFP added.
The second official confirmed that the strike - initiated by army General Tommy Franks, U.S. Central Command chief - was the biggest since a February 16th raid on air-defense targets near Baghdad.
Franks has authority to act and direct aircraft patrolling over Iraq without first seeking White House approval.
There were "a little less than 20 aircraft in the strike package, but approximately 50 in the air," launched from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and ground bases in the region, the second official said, quoted by AFP.
Earlier in the week, U.S. warplanes Tuesday attacked a multiple-rocket launcher near Mosul in northern Iraq.
Baghdad announced the U.S. strike was a U.S.-British retaliatory strike after Iraqi forces tried to shoot down a U-2 spy plane, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations said.
"We expect a strike at any time and Iraq is preparing for it," Mohammad al-Duri said in an interview with the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Hayat.
According to the U.S. defense department, Iraqi forces tried to shoot down a high-flying U-2 with a missile on Tuesday as it flew a reconnaissance mission over southern Iraq.
Admiral Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, reported several other previously unpublicized attempts to shoot down U-2s this year.
Iraq's air defense system has "largely been reconstituted" since the February 16th Baghdad air strike, he said, warning that U.S. forces "reserve the right to respond at the time, and location and manner of our choosing."
Iraq refuses to recognize the so-called "no-fly zones" imposed by the United States and Great Britain over northern and southern Iraq since 1990.
The zones, within which Iraqi aircraft are forbidden from flying, were set up after the Gulf War to allegedly protect Shia Muslims from attack by Iraqi government forces.
The Iraqi armed forces "plan such actions, not to shoot down a plane or kill a pilot, but to prevent enemy planes from violating our airspace," Duri said.
"We are developing our defensive forces to ensure our self-defense ... and we are ready to defend ourselves as far as possible," the ambassador told Al-Hayat.
"But we pose a danger to none. I don't believe that by defending ourselves we are posing a danger to anyone except those who are attacking us," Duri added.
Last month, U.S. President George W. Bush vowed to "keep the pressure" on Baghdad after a U2 spy plane on a reconnaissance mission was almost shot down by an Iraqi missile. The White House claims Iraq has recently stepped up its efforts to shoot down Allied warplanes patrolling the no-fly zones.
And Iraqi oil minister Amir Rasheed last month described U.S. claims that Iraq continues to develop weapons of mass destruction as "a big lie", noting that even the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is aware that Iraq had dismantled all weapons of mass destruction.
He said that the issue is being used as a political plot against Iraq and that the U.S. uses such issues also to "mislead and to confuse international public opinion".
Notably, former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter has accused the United States of deliberately provoking confrontations with Iraq, which, he says, was almost fully disarmed by 1995, news agencies reported.
Ritter says the United States undermined the work of UNSCOM, the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq, and used the issue to push Iraq towards conflict with the West, BBC's online service reported.
In his new documentary film, "In Shifting Sands: The Truth About UNSCOM and the Disarming of Iraq," Ritter says his team was satisfied Iraq had destroyed 98% of its weapons by 1995.
But, he says, the U.S. government deliberately set new standards of disarmament criteria to maintain U.N. sanctions against Baghdad and justify bombing raids.
In the film, which premiered at the United Nations, Ritter said UNSCOM chief Richard Butler told his inspectors: "You have to provoke a confrontation...so the U.S. can start bombing" before 15 March, a Muslim holy period, BBC added.
In the film, Ritter said Washington used UNSCOM to spy on Iraq almost from the time inspections began.
Ritter called for an end to sanctions imposed on Iraq, saying he did not feel the country posed a danger any longer.
"Iraq is a de-fanged tiger", he said.
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