Iraq shouts defiance as Western planes patrol

Iraq shouts defiance as Western planes patrol
REUTERS

FEB 19: Iraq voiced defiance as it reported Western warplanes carrying out fresh patrols of its skies following last week's US and British air strikes near Baghdad.

Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad on Sunday against Friday's air raid, which Washington and London said targeted five Iraqi radar installations in an operation to protect their planes policing no-fly zones.

Iraq said US and British planes patrolled the south of the country on Sunday for the second time since the Western air attack. The first patrol was on Saturday within hours of the raid.

In a striking reminder of the 1991 Gulf War, after which the no-fly zones were set up, the Israeli army announced joint exercises with the United States to fire Patriot missiles used a decade ago to try to intercept Iraqi Scud missiles that hit targets around Tel Aviv.

The Israeli military, however, insisted that the long-planned exercise starting on Monday had no connection with the air strikes U.S. President George W. Bush ordered against Iraq less than a month after taking office.

An estimated 10,000 Iraqis took to the streets in Sunday's Baghdad protest, chanting slogans against Bush and burning U.S. And Israeli flags in the biggest demonstration in the city since four days of Western bombing in December 1998.

Iraq sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calling for United Nations condemnation of Friday's air raid, which Baghdad said killed at least two civilians.

The Iraqi news agency INA said Saddam met top aides on Sunday to discuss improvements to anti-aircraft defences.

The US and Britain, roundly criticised around the world and also within NATO for the air strikes, said the Iraqi defences had been threatening their planes patrolling zones set up to protect Shi'ite Muslims in the south and a Kurdish enclave in the North from any attack by Baghdad's forces.

Iraq's official press has called for revenge and the Baghdad government was defiant.

"Iraq will continue defying American and British aircraft flying in its airspace...and will confront them by all possible means," Iraq's trade minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh said in Baghdad.

The commander of Iraq's anti-aircraft units, Lieutenant General Shahin Yassin Mohammed, told National Television after meeting Saddam that more than 15 Western planes had been hit since December 1998.

Washington and London have always denied such reports.

Friday's air raid prompted a barrage of protest from Russia, China and Arab countries, but also drew sharp criticism from within the Western NATO alliance.

The United States and Britain were rebuked by Turkey and France, who were both members of the Gulf War coalition that drove Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991.