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Iraq Increases Attacks on U.S. Planes NewsMax.com WiresWASHINGTON – The Iraqi military has moved more surface-to-air missiles into the northern and southern parts of the country in the last few days than it has for the last few years, and has used them to target American aircraft enforcing no-fly zones, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday. After nearly three months of quiet, Iraq fired on at least three U.S. aircraft in the space of five days: twice from surface-to-air missile sites in Mosul in the northern zone Friday, and once from near Talil in the southern zone April 15. The fighter planes responded with air strikes. "It was just reported to me today that some of these movements of surface-to-air missile systems into regions where we enforce the no-fly zone, under the U.N. resolutions, are greater than they've been in a couple of years," said Myers at a Pentagon briefing. "This is one of the things we have seen over time," he said. "There is just a little more activity in the last couple of days then the last couple of years." The last time U.S. forces were targeted or fired on in northern Iraq was February; in southern Iraq the last time was January. The United States has been enforcing the no-fly zones over Iraq for a decade with the assistance of Turkey and Great Britain. The United States interpreted two United Nations resolutions calling for the protection of Kurdish and Shi'ite minorities as allowing the creation of no-fly zones. Iraq rarely challenged U.S. aircraft enforcing the exclusion zones until December 1998, when the United States led a four-day assault on Baghdad in retaliation for Iraq's refusal to allow unfettered arms investigations by U.N. teams. After that attack, known as Operation Desert Fox, Saddam Hussein offered rewards for any U.S. aircraft shot down and pilots killed or captured. Iraq's quest to shoot down a manned aircraft has been futile despite more than 1,000 attempts over the least three and a half years, according to U.S. Central Command. However, Iraq has shot down at least three unmanned Predator reconnaissance aircraft. Myers said the new missile activity was not particularly significant but part of a regular ebb-and-flow of forces seen in Iraq. "Today I thought I'd just emphasize it, because we tend to forget that we have Americans being shot at on a fairly regular basis in other parts of the world besides Afghanistan, in a country where we're worried about their intentions," Myers said. Copyright 2002 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
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