24 U.S., British Jets Strike Sites Outside Baghdad

WASHINGTON —  President Bush, signaling that he intends to hold a tough line against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, ordered warplanes Friday to strike five air defense sites on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Twenty-four U.S. and British planes hit command-and-control sites that Bush said posed a growing threat to U.S. fliers patrolling “no-fly” zones in the northern and southern sections of Iraq.

“Saddam Hussein has got to understand . . . we expect him to conform to the agreement he signed” after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Bush said in San Cristobal, Mexico, where he was meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox.

The aircraft, which used long-range precision-guided munitions, returned safely to bases and an aircraft carrier in the Gulf region after an operation that lasted more than two hours. Military officials said they believe that the attack succeeded in destroying all of the sites. Iraq said nine people were injured in the strikes.

Although Bush described the strikes as “routine” enforcement, many observers and former U.S. officials said the magnitude, timing and choice of targets suggest that the new administration wanted to make a show of its resolve.

Bush and his aides have repeatedly criticized the Clinton administration for what they considered a poorly executed policy toward Iraq and have pledged since the presidential campaign to take a more forceful approach.

“This is an effort to take control of the situation again,” said Judith Yaphe, a former intelligence analyst now at the National Defense University in Washington. “For whatever reasons, a lot of violations had been ignored [and] nothing happened. We’re putting him on notice again that he won’t be able to cross any red lines and that he better reconsider his behavior.”

With this move, “we’re back to Bush I--and an administration that is again trying to keep [Hussein] guessing,” she said, referring to the new president’s father, who was in office during the Gulf War.

But National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice insisted to reporters in Mexico that the military action “isn’t any change in policy.”

Rice said such actions are triggered “when the commanders on the ground believe that there are Iraqi assets that put in danger our personnel and our forces as they try to carry out that enforcement.”

Although the aircraft remained within the southern no-fly zone, their munitions flew well north of its boundary, the 33rd parallel. The sorties thus marked the first time since December 1998 that U.S. forces have gone after targets in the country’s urban center.

The no-fly zones were set up after the Gulf War to keep Hussein from using aircraft to harass Kurdish and Shiite Muslim opponents. Since then, allied planes and Iraqi forces have played an intermittent and often unnoticed game of cat and mouse in which Iraqi batteries provoke allied warplanes by turning on radar and threatening attack, and allied planes strike back with missiles.

Key members of the U.N. Security Council have increasingly criticized the patrols.

Pentagon officials said the air defense sites were command-and-control nodes that the Iraqis have increasingly used to put U.S. and other allied aircraft at risk. The equipment gives the Iraqi forces increased capability to strike allied planes with surface-to-air missiles.

“They were getting closer and closer to our aircraft,” Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, director of operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, told an afternoon news conference. “They had been increasing the sophistication and frequency of their operations.”

American F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 fighter-bombers were used in the attack.

U.S. aircraft had fired at Iraqi air defense positions on nine occasions this year, including as recently as Sunday. But most of those strikes involved only a handful of aircraft, making this attack far larger, U.S. officials acknowledged.

The raid was proposed by Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, chief of the U.S. Central Command. His request went up the chain of command and was approved by the president. British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office said his government also authorized the raid.

“This was done for military purposes,” said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman.

But another U.S. official said the move was “only part” of a broader and more forceful U.S. policy that will be evident in the months ahead.

Air-raid sirens wailed continuously in Baghdad, the capital. In a scene reminiscent of the 1991 war, the skies were filled with the sound and bright bursts of antiaircraft fire. But observers on the city streets said they could see no trace of allied planes.

Some Iraq experts said the U.S. strike in effect expanded the rules of engagement in the sporadic war.

Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, said the action above the 33rd parallel “tells Saddam that he doesn’t have a sanctuary between the no-fly zones anymore.”

The Bush administration has also expanded the so-called “lines in the sand,” added Jon B. Alterman, an Iraq expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

“The United States has just told him that we’re not wedded to the previous lines in the sand,” Alterman said. “They can move--and we’ll be the ones to decide where they are.”

The administration insisted that the strikes didn’t interfere with Bush’s Mexico visit--his first foreign trip as president--arguing that the decision was required by events on the ground in Iraq.

But few doubted that the new administration was sending the first of several signals to show resolve on military measures, even if--as is widely expected--the Bush foreign policy team ultimately allows the lifting of the most punitive economic sanctions imposed against Iraq in an effort to alleviate humanitarian hardships, according to Henri Barkey, an Iraq expert formerly with the State Department.

In recent months, European and Arab nations have increasingly tested the boundaries of the sanctions.

In Senate testimony and public comments, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has already indicated that he favors “streamlining” sanctions--or lifting economic sanctions while maintaining an arms embargo and U.N. control of how Baghdad spends its oil revenues.

“This is one way the administration makes Saddam understand that easing sanctions doesn’t mean a softening of policy that he can exploit,” Barkey said. “Even if we’re willing to lighten some economic sanctions, we intend to be tough--and maybe tougher--on weapons of mass destruction and keeping Iraq in a military box.”

Several analysts suggested that the strong U.S. response might also have been intended to buy some time for the administration, which is still pulling together staff and is a long way from finishing its policy review.

There are significant fractures over how far to go in helping the controversial Iraqi opposition try to oust Hussein. But the disparate components of the Bush foreign policy team are strongly united on the need to stand firm against Iraqi military threats, insiders say.

Iraq’s escalation in the frequency of antiaircraft activity fits the classic Hussein pattern of probing the parameters of each new administration or political turn of events to see if it allows any new leeway, experts say.

“Long before Clinton left office, everyone expected Saddam to challenge the new administration,” Barkey said.

The Iraqi leader also has long wanted to shoot down a U.S. warplane for the propaganda value both at home and in the region. “If he had been successful at the beginning of the new administration,” Barkey said, “he would have really embarrassed the new team and put it on the defensive.”

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A History of Attacks

Some key events in Washington’s continued confrontation with Baghdad since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

1991: April - The U.S., Britain and France declare a “safe haven” for Kurds in Northern Iraq and impose a “ no fly” zone north of the 36th parallel.

1992: August - Southern “no-fly” zone set up to protect anti-Baghdad Shiite Muslims.

1993: June - U.S. warships fire 23 cruise missiles at Baghdad in retaliation for an alleged Iraqi plot to kill former U.S. President George Bush.

1996: - September - U.S. fires 44 cruise missiles at air defense installations near Baghdad as a warning to Iraq to comply with Gulf War cease-fire resolutions. The U.S. also extends the southern no-fly zone to the 33rd parallel, just south of Baghdad.

1998: January - Iraq prevents arms inspectors from doing their work.

December - U.S. attacks Baghdad with bombs and missiles over four nights.

1999: August - For the first time, Iraq reports U.S. and British air raids on areas outside no-fly zones.

2001: Jan. 29 - American and British planes attack targets in Basra, and five other provinces.

Feb. 16 - U.S. says planes strike air defense facilities outside the no-fly zone near Baghdad.