Iraqis shoot down American plane
By Toby Harnden in Washington
An Iraqi warplane shot down an unmanned US surveillance drone yesterday, threatening to
escalate the tension in the region as America builds up its forces for a possible war
early next year.
It was the first time that an allied aircraft
had been destroyed by Iraqi fire since United Nations Resolution 1441 was passed
unanimously last month.
The strike came as Baghdad condemned what it
called a "mad campaign based on lies and accusations" waged by "Little
Bush".
A jubilant Iraqi military spokesman said the
Predator, flying from a base in Kuwait, had breached Iraqi airspace.
"With God's help, and with the will of
the men of our heroic air defence forces and brave sky eagles, it was shot down in a
delicate and planned operation."
The Pentagon said the Predator had been
operating legally over the southern no-fly zone in accordance with UN resolutions that
Saddam Hussein had promised to abide by.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary,
said the Iraqis "obviously aren't" abiding by UN resolutions.
"They've been making a strenuous,
energetic effort to shoot down US aircraft for many, many months now - manned and
unmanned," he said.
Commander Dan Gage, a US Central Command
spokesman, said Iraq had fired on American and British aircraft on 32 days since
Resolution 1441 was passed.
British planes had attacked Iraqi air
defences in the two no-fly zones at least five times in the past week.
Iraq has also stepped up its anti-American
rhetoric in recent weeks. Yesterday, al-Thawra, the ruling Ba'ath Party newspaper,
declared in a front-page editorial: "The administration of Little Bush is launching a
mad campaign based on lies and accusations."
The jibe was a reference to George W Bush's
father, President George Bush Snr, who led allied forces against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf
war.
Predators operated by the US Air Force have
been fitted with laser-guided Hellfire missiles of the type used by the CIA to kill Qaed
Salim Sinan al-Harethi, an al-Qa'eda operative, and five other terrorists in Yemen last
month.
The loss of the Predator came as the UN's
International Atomic Energy Agency said it had begun interviewing Iraqi scientists it had
identified during inspections at several suspect Iraqi sites.
"We understand to a large extent where
all the old scientists were and who all the new scientists are, so the interviews are
conducted more efficiently," it said.
The Bush administration, which has already
said Iraq is in "material breach" of Resolution 1441 because of a false
declaration that it had no weapons of mass destruction, is pressurising the UN inspectors
to interview scientists outside the country.
American officials believe that Saddam will
block scientists from leaving Iraq, thereby providing what Washington would view as a
second justification for war to oust him. |
