From the moment he took the oath of office, President Bush had been looking for an opportunity to show a harder line on Iraq, U.S. officials say. Saddam Hussein gave him one.
Friday’s air strike by British and American warplanes on five Iraqi radar command centers resulted from what U.S. and British officials said was a dramatic increase in threatening activity directed at their planes flying routine patrols over southern Iraq.
Iraq, which does not recognize the legitimacy of the no-fly zones over southern and northern portions of the country, began to accelerate its challenges of the warplanes at the beginning of the year. Even during the transition period before the Jan. 20 inauguration, key Bush advisers, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, were briefed on the stepped up activity, according to U.S. officials.
It therefore was something less than a total surprise when the U.S. Central Command, the military headquarters responsible for the Persian Gulf region, brought to the Pentagon and the White House a request to conduct a coordinated strike on five Iraqi air defense targets, including four just outside Baghdad.
The request arrived as Bush and his top advisers, Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were in intensive policy discussions on the administration’s stance on Iraq.
Bush approved the strike unhesitatingly on Thursday, officials said. After the precision-guided bombs had been dropped Friday, Bush shrugged off the first military action of his presidency as “a routine mission.”
Rice said the strike was “aimed at making certain our pilots are safe in the theater.” Refusing to go into the decision-making behind the strike, Rice said, “under this circumstance, the president authorized it and was notified. . . . There isn’t a change in policy. It has been going on since 1991.”
U.S. officials, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, said Bush is determined to send the signal that there would be no relaxing of the box the U.S. military has built around Iraq and to show no less willingness to defend U.S. and British warplanes.
Although the Bush White House seeks to portray the strike as a “steady as she goes” continuation of Clinton administration policy, during the campaign Bush sharply criticized Clinton for allowing the coalition that the elder President George Bush built up against Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf war to erode to the point where only the United States and Britain are left to enforce the no-fly zones.
In the face of negative international reaction to the strike, Bush made clear that despite his desire to rebuild the anti-Iraq coalition, he is willing to act alone, or with no one other than Britain, to contain Iraq even if it means criticism.
Countries criticizing the United States on Saturday for conducting the air strike included Turkey and France, both NATO members; Jordan and Qatar, both moderate Arab states that generally cooperate with Washington; and Egypt, one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid. Russia, China, India, Iran, Cuba, Syria and Algeria also sharply criticized the administration.
Other than Israel and Britain, the only notable praise for the strike came from Republican and Democratic lawmakers frustrated by Iraq’s continuing ability to defy international sanctions and win sympathy around the world for suffering that Washington insists is being inflicted by Hussein on his own people.
“President Bush has signaled that he is not interested in simply maintaining an appearance of containment,” said Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the strike “an appropriate response to the increased threat from the Iraqi air defense system reported by our pilots.”
Pentagon officials said privately that Air Force pilots and commanders operating in the Persian Gulf have been pressing for a freer hand in responding to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire and launchings of surface-to-air missiles. The arrival of a new administration offered the prospect that their concerns would get a more sympathetic hearing.
Specifically, the field commanders have been warning that despite the frequent U.S. and British air strikes, Iraq was rebuilding and improving its air defenses to the level where patrolling aircraft would be endangered.
Samih Jamal, 54, a retired Iraqi government worker, expressed a question some in the Pentagon have been asking: “How many times do they destroy what they themselves said they have already destroyed?”
Iraq reported Saturday that the air strike by 18 American and six British fighter-bombers, all using precision-guided munitions, killed two civilians and wounded 20.
Comments from Baghdad as well as London and Washington made clear that the strike was about more than air defenses.
The state-controlled Iraqi News Agency said Saturday that Hussein and his top aides discussed plans for military retaliation in the event of further U.S. and British air strikes.
Bush, meanwhile, suggested Friday that U.S. military action would not be limited to protecting against Iraqi anti-aircraft fire. He said that if Iraq persisted in trying to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and longer-range missiles, “we’ll take the appropriate action.”
British Prime Minister Tony Blair linked the military pressure on Iraq to the threat Hussein’s still formidable military poses to the oil-rich Arab states in the region, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
“Saddam Hussein remains a threat to stability in the Middle East,” Blair said. “I am determined to prevent his tyrannical regime from once again attacking Iraq’s neighbors, and to ensure that the humanitarian crises we witnessed after the Persian Gulf war should not be repeated.”
