Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- <A HREF="aol://4344:3167.iraq.21067926.666815971"> AOL News: U.S. Planes Bomb Targets in Iraq</A> U.S. Planes Bomb Targets in Iraq .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (Aug. 7) - U.S. fighter planes bombed an air defense site in northern Iraq Tuesday after taking fire from Iraqi surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery, U.S. officials said. In a written statement, the U.S. European Command said the bombing was in self-defense. Officials said it was not a planned attack in response to the recent near-miss Iraqi attack on a U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane. European Command said the U.S. aircraft, which flew from an air base in south-central Turkey, departed Iraqi airspace safely. Tuesday's exchange north of the city of Mosul was the latest in a long-running series of attacks and counterattacks in northern and southern Iraq, where U.S. and British aircraft enforce ''no fly'' zones established shortly after the 1991 Gulf War. Vacationing in Texas, President Bush defended the missions as fully in accordance with international law. Iraqi President ''Saddam Hussein is a menace and we need to keep him in check and we will,'' Bush told reporters Tuesday. ''He's been a menace forever and he needs to open his country for inspection so we can see whether he is making weapons of mass destruction.'' Iraq considers the ''no fly'' zones to be illegal and has mounted a sustained effort to shoot down a U.S. or British plane. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last Friday that Iraq has rebuilt its air defenses since U.S. and British warplanes attacked radar and communications targets around Baghdad on Feb. 16. Rumsfeld offered no indication of whether or how the United States would respond, but he seemed to hint that any retaliation would go beyond the limited set of targets in the February raid. ''One tends to want to do things that will have somewhat more lasting effects,'' he told a Pentagon news conference. He noted that the February attacks struck air defense sites that had been linked by fiber-optic cable to make them more effective. The problem, he said, with striking those cables is that they get re-laid. AP-NY-08-07-01 1140EDT Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
