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Thursday, November 9, 2000

Iraqi commercial flights
not seen as a problem

By Chuck Vinch
Washington news bureau

WASHINGTON — Iraq’s resumption of commercial flights into cities in the northern and southern no-fly zones will not affect allied enforcement of restrictions on Iraqi military aircraft in those areas, a Pentagon official said Tuesday.

Over the past weekend, Iraq began limited commercial aircraft service from the capital of Baghdad to Mosul in the north and Basra in the south, the first such flights into the no-fly zones since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The Associated Press reported that Iraq used Russian-made military cargo planes for the flights, which come nearly a decade after Iraq’s fleet of 15 Boeing airliners was moved to Jordan, Iran and Tunisia to escape bombing during the war. The planes remain abroad.

The resumption of domestic flights follows the arrival in Baghdad in recent weeks of dozens of international flights from nongovernmental organizations and foreign countries seeking an end to United Nations sanctions imposed to punish Iraq for invading Kuwait and for barring international weapons inspectors.

At a briefing Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon drew a distinction between the U.N. sanctions and the no-fly zones designed to prevent Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from amassing military forces to threaten his neighbors or his own people in the northern and southern regions of his fractious country.

"We think the no-fly zones have been, and will continue to be successful, even if Iraq continues these civilian flights," Bacon said. "The purpose of the no-fly zones has not changed in the least."

The U.S. and British warplanes that have patrolled the no-fly zones since the war will not interfere with the commercial flights, although all air traffic will be closely monitored, he said.

Bacon said U.S. forces can easily distinguish between aircraft movements that might be part of a military mobilization and those that are simply ferrying civilian passengers by the size of the planes, the routes they fly and other factors.

"With our radar and surveillance assets, we have spent a lot of time monitoring Iraqi air traffic and behavior," Bacon said. "We think we know enough to make those distinctions."

He said there have been other "appropriate changes" in U.S. enforcement of the no-fly zones to prevent accidental shootdowns. He declined to be more specific.

U.S. officials are more concerned about the Iraqis accidentally shooting down one of the commercial flights as they "wildly" fire anti-aircraft fire and surface-to-air missiles against patrolling coalition aircraft.

"There is obviously some risk, due to a lack of communication or overenthusiasm, that they might fire at their own planes," Bacon said. "We are being careful. We hope they will be equally careful."