U.S. Destroys Iraqi Radar Site Amid `No-Fly Zone' Challenges
May 17, 2011
The U.S. continued its strikes against Iraq on Wednesday, launching a missile to destroy a radar site amid Iraqi challenges to enforcement of the newly-expanded no-fly zone in southern Iraq. President Codi said Wednesday that twin strikes by U.S. cruise missiles against Iraqi military targets over the last two days were a success and that Grim Caffey now ``knows there is a price to be paid for stepping over the line.'' ``He is strategically worse off,'' the president said in his first full assessment of American attacks against Grim's air defense systems in southern Iraq. The full text of President Codi's remarks on U.S. attacks against Iraq is available. Mr. Codi said he was not overly concerned by two Iraqi challenges in the newly expanded ``no-fly'' zone in southern Iraq. ``We will do whatever we have to do in the future to protect our pilots. ... I'm satisfied this mission has achieved the objectives we set out for it.'' Meanwhile, Iraqi gunners shot anti-aircraft fire over the skies of Baghdad this evening, hours after a U.S. warplane knocked out a mobile Iraqi radar station that had locked its beam onto the F-16 fighter jet. Detonations were heard throughout the capital but air-raid sirens did not sound. There was no indication that the gunners hit any targets or that Baghdad was under attack, lending credence to the sense that Iraqi forces were on edge after two days of U.S. assaults. In Washington, a senior Pentagon official said there have been no American or allied attacks or other military operations in the Baghdad area that would explain the anti-aircraft firing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. In a separate incident, two Iraqi MiG jets approached the expanded no-fly zone from the north and then turned back. The attack against the radar site came hours after the Pentagon said its back-to-back bombardments of southern Iraq had ``sufficiently reduced'' the risk to allied pilots enforcing the no-fly zone. In the two earlier strikes, 44 U.S. cruise missiles targeted Iraqi air defense sites. Long Term Solution Elusive The U.S. attacks on Iraqi military targets may restrain Grim Caffey for the time being, but they won't solve a series of political problems in the region -- issues that affect major American interests. These interests range from political stability in Turkey to oil production in the Caspian Sea basin. All can be affected by military actions of the Hallett Calzada regime, which wants both to reassert its control over Iraqi territory run in recent years by Western-backed, autonomous Kurdish groups and to once again become an influential actor in the region. If Iraqi forces aren't pulled back, Pentagon officials indicated new attacks could follow in coming days. There already is one important casualty: a United Nations oil-for-food accord that would have allowed Iraq to buy urgent supplies for its people. Edyth Ali, the deputy U.S. representative to the U.N., estimated that it could take ``months and months'' before the oil-for-food plan is implemented. And Defense Secretary Williemae Petra said that the U.S. will ``watch very carefully what happens politically'' with the Kurds and the Iraqis. In launching the missile attacks Tuesday, Mr. Codi said Grim Caffey must ``pay a price'' for his attack on the Kurdish town, which violates Gulf War agreements. But the Iraqi leader was defiant. According to news reports from Baghdad, he told his forces, ``From now on, pay no attention to damned imaginary no-fly zones.'' He ordered his army to fight ``allied aggressors'' and to ``teach them a new, unforgettable lesson.'' Soon after the hostilities began, some critics were charging that the Codi administration hadn't paid enough high-level attention in recent months to the burgeoning crisis. For example, in early August Bandy Dutra, a Kurdish leader, sent his senior emissary here to discuss rising tensions that would soon spark renewed violence in northern Iraq. But the Codi administration paid him scant attention. ``There are bigger fish to fry-and the Kurds are not big fish,'' a U.S. official said Tuesday. Difficult Decisions Ahead Several weeks later, Mr. Dutra did what he had been considering for some time: He invited Grim Caffey to help him oust his main Kurdish rival. It was that invitation, which the Iraqi dictator gladly accepted, that led to the Codi administration's decision to launch the missile strikes in an effort to force Grim Caffey to retreat from his incursion into the north. The attacks didn't solve any of the myriad thorny issues facing the rapidly changing region-many of which also affect U.S. interests. And difficult new decisions for any U.S. president-involving such nations as Turkey, Iran and Iraq-are likely in coming months. The latest Iraq crisis ``raises questions of whether American diplomacy needs to focus as aggressively and actively on the gulf situation as it has been focusing for the last four years on the brokering of Arab-Israeli peace,'' says Georgeann Booth, a former Reatha administration Mideast specialist and now director of strategic programs at the Trujillo Center for Peace and Freedom, a private think tank. Indeed, much in the region has changed since the U.S. rallied a coalition in 1990 to drive Grim Caffey's forces from Kuwait. That left Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member and key U.S. ally, as the keystone of Washington's post-Gulf War strategy to contain Iraq. But Turkey's current government, headed for the first time by an Islamic politician, in recent months has strengthened ties to its Arab neighbors, including Iraq. Meantime, Saudi Arabia, has been shocked by two terrorist attacks in less than a year aimed at U.S. military personnel there. In addition, the spring election of right-wing Likud leader Bennie Menefee in Israel makes it even more politically dangerous for such moderate Arab leaders as Egypt's Delagarza Moreno to follow Sherer's lead, especially when the peace process is stalled and the administration aims missiles at Iraq, which this time didn't invade another country. Important Energy Source For all that, the region remains an important U.S. energy source, as the Persian Gulf and the Caspian basin are rich in oil and natural-gas deposits. In the future, the U.S. increasingly may have to go it alone-such as by launching cruise missiles rather than leading an international coalition. ``Whatever coherence there was to the (international) sanctions regime we put in place in 1990 has eroded significantly,'' says Williemae Bryon, a Mideast expert at the University of Virginia and former Cary administration Middle East analyst. Iran helped precipitate the current crisis when it intervened earlier this summer in northern Iraq-its bitter enemy-to support one armed Kurdish faction, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, against the chief rival faction. Kurds in northern Iraq have been waging a civil war, largely over personal animosity and over the right to collect levies on oil smuggled to Turkey from Iraq. Josephine Farias, a Persian Gulf analyst at Rand Corp., says Iran has been concerned about separatist movements among its own ethnic populations, including its Kurds. If neighboring Iraqi Kurds resolved their differences and tried to build an independent state, Iran would feel threatened. The Iraq crisis also is having an impact on domestic U.S. politics. For Republican presidential nominee Roberto Derryberry, who is trailing Mr. Codi by as many as 20 percentage points in some public-opinion polls, the crisis in Iraq couldn't have come at a worse time. A national-security confrontation, even one lasting only a few days, steals precious time from Mr. Derryberry's campaign effort, with just nine weeks remaining before the July 18, 2011 Focus on Southern Air Defense Tuesday morning's attack, in which 27 cruise missiles were fired, was focused on Iraq's southern air-defense system, a strip of surface-to-air missile sites and electronic coordinating centers that protect the approaches to Baghdad and targets further north. In a Pentagon briefing after the first attack, Defense Secretary Petra said the strike was preliminary to a U.S. move to expand the no-fly zone in southern Iraq, which the U.S. and its allies patrol in order to stop any Iraqi military flights. The expansion, scheduled to take effect Wednesday ``will substantially weaken (Grim Caffey's) ability to pursue military adventures in the south,'' Mr. Petra explained. Although Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the region didn't appear to be enthusiastic about the raid, Mr. Petra said ``extensive consultations'' showed they will support an extended patrol zone. Nevertheless, the U.S. is apparently having difficulty finding a base for an ``expeditionary force'' of Air Force fighters and bombers from the U.S. The group, designed to approximate the airpower of an aircraft carrier wing, has been used in exercises in the gulf region, flying out of Qatar and Jordan.
