*EPF202 08/07/01
Defense Department Report, August 7: Air Strikes Over Iraq
(U.S., British warplanes hit Iraqi air defenses) (420)

U.S. and British warplanes struck Iraqi air defense sites near the northern Iraqi town of Mosul August 7 after a multiple rocket launcher battery fired three surface-to-air missiles at coalition planes patrolling the northern no-fly zone, the U.S. European Command says.

President Bush said from his ranch in Crawford, Texas that the response by the U.S.-British warplanes complied with procedures in the two no-fly zones in Iraq. The Iraqi news agency INA confirmed that the air strikes came at 12:25 p.m., local time (0825 GMT, 4:25 a.m. EDT) August 7.

The U.S. European Command said in a prepared statement that U.S. and British warplanes came under attack near Mosul from Iraqi anti-aircraft fire. The coalition fighter jets were flying from an airbase in southern Turkey.

"Coalition aircraft responded to the Iraqi attacks by dropping ordinance on elements of the Iraqi integrated air defense system," the command statement said. "All coalition aircraft departed the area safely."

Navy Rear Admiral Craig Quigley said during a Department of Defense briefing August 7 that the attacks by U.S.-British warplanes were not an effort to degrade Iraq's integrated air defense system. He said this was in direct response to the rockets launched against the patrolling aircraft.

The Pentagon had said the Iraqis nearly struck a high-flying U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance aircraft July 24 with a surface-to-air missile during a patrol over the southern no-fly zone. Quigley said it has become apparent that Iraq is aggressively trying to shoot down coalition warplanes.

Quigley said he "could not rule out, or in" retaliation over the U-2 incident. "The goal is to protect the people in the north and the south [of Iraq]," he said.

The air strikes have become common since December 1998 when Iraq began challenging coalition warplanes flying over the no-fly zones established after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The zones were established to prevent Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from persecuting minority Shiite Muslims in the south and a Kurdish enclave in the north.

This is the eighth air strike this year by coalition aircraft, and the first since July 17, when U.S. planes struck an air defense site in the southern no-fly zone. The last previous air strike in the northern no-fly zone was June 14.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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