- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A leading
Iraqi newspaper said on Monday Iraq could defeat any U.S. attack after
Washington threatened to step up use of military force in response to Baghdad's
attempt last week to shoot down a U.S. U-2 spy plane.
-
- "Iraqis' resistance against the American and British
aggression is growing, which will secure a final defeat to the aggressors
and force them to leave our national air space," the ruling Baath
Party newspaper al-Thawra said.
-
- "The Iraqis...now have the capability, power and
will to contain any new aggression and foil its aims," it said.
-
- In Washington, a senior U.S. official said on Sunday
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was on the U.S. "radar scope"
and the Bush administration would use military force against his government
in a "more resolute manner" than in the past.
-
- Iraqi anti-aircraft defenses came close to hitting a
high- altitude U-2 spy plane with a missile last Tuesday. According to
a U.S. account, the modified Russian-made missile just missed the plane
in a "no-fly zone" over southern Iraq.
-
- Iraq denied on Saturday that its defenses had fired a
missile at the U-2, saying U.S. officials wanted to create a pretext for
a fresh military attack against Iraq.
-
- U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice declined
on Sunday to speculate on when President George W. Bush might order an
attack against Iraq.
-
- "But I can be certain of this and the world can
be certain of this: Saddam Hussein is on the radar screen for the administration,"
she said on CNN's "Late Edition" program.
-
- The administration was working with friends and allies
to craft a broad policy toward Iraq that among other things looked at the
use of "military force in a more resolute manner and not just a manner
of tit-for-tat with them every day," she said.
-
- Bush said last week Saddam remained a menace and a threat
to U.S. and international security a decade after the Gulf War.
-
- U.S. and British warplanes have been patrolling no-fly
zones over northern and southern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraqi
troops were ousted from Kuwait by a U.S.-led coalition.
-
- Iraq was banned from using all aircraft, including helicopters,
in the zones, set up by Western powers to protect minority Kurds and Shiites
from attack by Saddam's forces.
-
- No allied aircraft have been lost, although the Iraqi
military has repeatedly fired anti-aircraft guns and missiles at the warplanes,
which have responded by dropping bombs and firing missiles at Iraqi air
defense sites.
-
-
-
- http://www.turkishdailynews.com/FrTDN/latest/for2.htm#f22
|
