After striking at Iraqi missiles that allegedly targeted allied warplanes patrolling the country’s “no-fly” zone, the U.S. sternly warned Baghdad on Tuesday against further military provocations.
An American F-16 launched an air-to-ground missile at the Iraqi missile site early Tuesday in response to what allied forces said was evidence that radar had “locked on” to a nearby British patrol plane. The U.S. missile, according to Iraqi officials, missed the installation and hit a complex of storage tanks instead.
The incident increased tensions in the Persian Gulf region, already on edge since United Nations inspectors last week reported finding evidence that Iraq had loaded missile warheads with deadly VX nerve agent. That report drew an angry and threatening denial from Baghdad.
U.S. military sources say the Iraqis activated radar to “paint,” or track, two British jets patrolling the no-fly zone in southern Iraq and “locked on” to one of them. The zone is off-limits to Iraqi aircraft and was established after the Persian Gulf war. The U.S. jet that fired on the radar installation was one of 10 allied planes in the area.
It wasn’t clear whether the Iraqi lock-on was a deliberate test of the allied forces or an accident. Iraq denied its radar had been activated, and an official called the U.S. action an “unjustified, aggressive act.”
The incident occurred as the U.S. has sharply reduced its military strength in the gulf. About 20,000 U.S. military personnel remain in the area, down from 37,000 in February, when Hussein created a crisis by refusing to allow UN weapons inspectors to enter Iraq. There also are 10 ships, including an aircraft carrier, and 162 U.S. aircraft, and these numbers are being reduced as well.
The force reduction is intended to relieve U.S. fliers and other military personnel from the strain of prolonged overseas deployment in areas with high combat potential. But even as it reduces its forces in the gulf region, the U.S. military has had to prepare to take part in possible NATO airstrikes or other military actions intended to stop Serbia’s attacks on its rebellious Kosovo province.
Vice President Al Gore and other U.S. officials said they hoped the radar lock-on was an isolated incident but threatened further use of force in response to any Iraqi provocation.
“We do know from patrolling the no-fly zones that there are a lot of incidents like this from time to time and there are other possible explanations,” said Gore, speaking from the White House. “But just so the message is clear, we are going to continue to patrol, and any time there is any kind of threatening act, we will take decisive action to respond immediately.”
Speaking at a Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Iraq’s response to the F-16 missile firing will be what counts most.
“Hopefully, we will return to the same basis that we have engaged in for the past several months now,” Cohen said. “They have made no aggressive moves–that we have detected, at least–toward any of our aircraft. So it may be an isolated case.”
However, he added: “We intend to engage very vigorously in force protection. If any of our aircraft or those of our allies are targeted, then they will be met with a very vigorous response.”
President Clinton, who was traveling in China, was informed of the incident after an unexplained eight-hour delay and was said to be following developments.
The incident occurred just after midnight CDT when four British Tornado ground-attack aircraft and six other planes, including two U.S. F-16s, were operating in the no-fly zone near Basra in southern Iraq.
According to the Defense Department’s Central Command, one of the F-16 pilots fired a single High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) at the Iraqi radar source as soon as one of the British aircraft detected that it had become a lock-on target.
In air combat, the lock-on is the step immediately preceding the firing of a missile. Retaliatory firing of an air-to-ground missile at the enemy radar is a standard defensive procedure for pilots of aircraft threatened by a lock-on.
No Iraqi missile firing followed the lock-on of the British plane. Cohen said he had no confirmed intelligence on what the F-16’s HARM missile struck, adding: “I don’t know that the target was hit. It seems perhaps it was not hit.”
A spokesman for the British government said he had received reports that the U.S. weapon may have struck a petroleum facility.
“I think it was an appropriate response,” said Rep. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.), a member of the House National Security Committee. “This is the necessary response of an aircraft that’s threatened with attack. We’ve had a series of false starts–radar trackings–to test the U.S. response.”
Anthony Cordesman, co-director of Middle East studies at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Iraqi radar targeting system required only “the flipping of two switches” to go from “search” to “track” and from there to a lock-on of allied warplanes.
“Accidents happen,” he said. “A commander who’s new may see four attack aircraft in his envelope and panic.
“The other side of this, of course, is (that) we just embarrassed Iraq very seriously by proving it was lying about the nerve gas on its missile warheads. We just won a major battle to extend sanctions (against Iraq) in the (UN) Security Council.
“Trying to create an incident with the U.S. and Britain . . . follows a possible Iraqi policy of trying to split the United States and Britain off from the rest of the UN and nations like France and Russia (which are friendlier to Iraq).”
Retired Army Col. Joseph Collins, former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now a senior fellow at CSIS, said he thinks the incident was part of a pattern of deliberate provocations.
“I don’t think this would be accidental,” he said. “They’ve been turning on and off radar to probe our response over the years. I think this is the fourth or fifth time this has happened.”
