WASHINGTON Ñ President George Bush has ordered the military
to respond forcefully to any Iraqi attack on American and British warplanes
that patrol the no-fly zones, U.S. officials said. They said the aim is to eliminate or reduce Baghdad's improved air
defense network.
Officials said the Bush administration restrained the military in April
and much of May to allow for the passage of a new sanctions regime on
Baghdad. The so-called smart sanctions are meant to tighten controls on
military and dual-use items while allowing Iraq to quickly import
humanitarian goods.
The administration had been quietly concerned over Iraq's buildup of
radar and anti-aircraft facilities in northern and southern Iraq, Middle East Newsline reported. Officials
said the buildup began in March and included improved systems meant to
quickly detect and respond to allied intrusion into Iraqi air space.
"The idea is that we move toward zero-tolerance of Iraqi aggression," an
official said. "If Iraq attacks our planes or anything else of ours, we hit
back twice as hard."
Britain and the United States have been
enforcing the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq for more than five
years.
Over the last week, U.S. warplanes have destroyed two Iraqi radar
facilities in southern Iraq, officials said. The last such attack was on
Thursday, when U.S. F-16 aircraft dropped precision-guided bombs on an Iraqi
anti-aircraft battery and command and control installation near the Kuwaiti
border.
In both cases, officials said, the U.S. warplanes responded after they
were fired upon by Iraqi anti-aircraft missiles. The U.S. planes returned
safely to base.
"Aggression by Iraq led to the destruction of two military targets by
the coalition forces charged with enforcing the southern no-fly zone," U.S.
Central Command said in a statement.
Central Command identified the two sites as an anti-aircraft missile
battery near Nasiriyah, about 300 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, and a
military aircraft and missile control center near Tallil, 300 kilometers
south-southeast of the capital. An Iraqi military spokesman said two Iraqi
nationals were killed in the allied attack.