- WASHINGTON (UPI) - U.S. aircraft have bombed radar and missile sites in
southern Iraq three times since Monday after being "painted"
with radar and threatened with artillery fire several times, Gen. Richard
Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.
The U.S. aircraft patrol northern and southern Iraqi skies in an effort
to keep Iraqi warplanes out of the sky and troops on the ground in check.
They have been enforcing two no-fly zones for a decade. The flights were
unchallenged for seven years. But in December 1998, the United States led
a four-day attack on Baghdad to punish Iraq for refusing to allow U.N.
arms inspectors into the country for unfettered investigations into its
weapons capabilities. At that point Saddam Hussein began targeting the
aircraft, drawing retaliatory strikes from the United States.
"Sometimes it's Triple-A (anti-aircraft artillery) and sometimes it's
missiles," Myers said at a Pentagon news conference Thursday. "In
the last few days we've reacted as we can anytime we can ascertain where
it's coming from."
The aircraft dropped precision-guided munitions on artillery and missile
sites on Jan. 21, 23 and 24, Myers said.
The pace of operations in Iraq has slowed somewhat. In 1999 and 2000, there
were strikes in either the north or south nearly every other day. The pace
of attacks slackened in 2001, with the last such strike occurring in late
November.
-
- Copyright © 2002 United Press International.
All rights reserved.
|
