The Pentagon acknowledged Monday that U.S. warplanes, in responding to yet another round of Iraqi air defense activations, may have severed the oil export pipeline that is the main support of the battered Iraqi economy and the country’s beleaguered civilian population.
Surveillance photographs and other bomb damage assessment data were being reviewed Monday to determine what sites were hit in the Sunday afternoon incident, Pentagon officials said.
“We responded to attacks upon our aircraft by targeting those facilities that allowed Iraqi forces to place our pilots in jeopardy,” Defense Secretary William Cohen said Monday.
“We did in fact target a communications facility, which may or may not have interrupted the flow of oil temporarily going into Turkey. But we believe that the target itself was one that was used for communications purposes,” Cohen said.
Although it could prove devastating to what remains of the Iraqi economy, cutting the oil pipeline would have small effect on world oil supplies and prices, which are at “glut” levels. The Iraqi Oil Ministry said one oil worker was killed and two injured in the attacks.
Military analysts speculated that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might have deliberate-ly invited the aerial assault on the vital pipeline area in hopes of gaining sympathy and sup-
port from Arab neighbors in his continuing conflict with the U.S. and its Western and Arab allies.
Proceeds from the sale of oil transported by the pipeline are used to buy food and other necessities for Iraq’s civilian population under an exemption from the UN sanctions.
The Clinton administration has been pursuing a policy that attempts to spare the Iraqi people from Western military measures targeted against Hussein and his military machine in hopes of encouraging opposition to the dictator’s regime.
U.S. and British aircraft have been policing “no-fly” zones in the north and south of Iraq largely to prevent Hussein from using his air force against dis-sident groups among his own people.
Since the U.S. and its allies unleashed Operation Desert Fox against Hussein last December, in response to his refusal to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors, the Iraqi military has targeted or fired at allied aircraft in the two no-fly zones some 100 times.
Sunday’s attack took place near the city of Mosul, which lies in the northern no-fly zone, not far from the Turkish border. A spokesman for Operation Northern Watch, whose 45 aircraft police the zone daily, said a flight of U.S. planes was targeted several times by Iraqi radar, prompting American F-15 fighters to respond.
“U.S. F-15Es dropped more than 30 2,000-pound and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on Iraqi communications sites, radio relay sites and anti-aircraft artillery sites,” the spokesman said.
It was the second such Iraqi provocation in two days in what has become an almost daily occurrence.
According to National Defense University Middle East expert Judy Yaphe, it is possible Hussein’s regime used radar signals to provoke U.S. aircraft to attack various sites in the area.
“The question is, did the Iraqis set us up?” said Yaphe, a former U.S. intelligence officer.
“They use movable radars, which they turn on and then turn off. They do that all the time. They’ve been trying to force an accident for some time. If he can’t shoot down a plane and capture an American airman, Saddam tries for collateral damage (against civilians). Smart bombs aren’t always smart, and, under the law of averages, an accident could be expected.”
In an embassy briefing in Washington last week, British Minister of State Derek Fatchett said Hussein’s failure to win sympathy from Arab leaders in the region had helped put him “in a desperate state” and that downing a U.S. or British aircraft and crew has become Hussein’s “clear objective” for propaganda purposes.
Under an “oil for food” arrangement aimed at alleviating civilian suffering because of sanctions, Iraq is allowed to sell $5.2 billion worth of oil every six months, which has worked out to about 2 million barrels a day.
The Iraq-Turkey pipeline has been the main conduit for getting the oil to market, though some is transported across the border in trucks.
A long-closed pipeline from Iraq through Syria has not yet been reopened, and a third line through the south, used primarily for smuggling oil out of the country during the period of sanctions, was knocked out of commission during the Desert Fox airstrikes.
Yaphe said the U.S. has been considering an end to limits on Iraqi oil exports, provided no funds go to the Iraqi military.
