Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 12, 1991 TAG: 9102120572
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA LENGTH: Medium
American pilots on "Scud patrol" claimed they destroyed up to four Iraqi missile launchers in western Iraq, U.S. officials said today. Nevertheless, Israel was hit with one missile early today launched from that region.
In an unusual step, Iraq also disclosed nearly 100 air raids on military targets in southern Iraq and Kuwait. Normally, such attacks are not mentioned in the daily military communiques read on Baghdad radio.
President Bush said Monday that the allies will continue the air assault, taking "whatever time is necessary" to lay the groundwork for a land war.
Four explosions rocked the center of Baghdad during the night, jolting people from their beds and shattering windows in residential areas, AP correspondent Salah Nasrawi reported from the Iraqi capital.
Rockets from allied aircraft ripped through the ministry building, which is in charge of governing Kuwait, killing six people, including one child, and wounding 17 people, Iraqi civil defense officials said. Reporters taken to the site six hours later saw flames rising from the wreckage.
The Local Government Ministry is headed by Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin and close aide to Saddam. Al-Majid did not appear to be in the complex.
The Baghdad government claimed that civilian targets, including a maternity hospital and nursery, were hit in the latest round of allied raids.
Peace activist Ramsey Clark, a former attorney general who visited Iraq last week, says allied bombs have killed an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 Iraqi civilians. He told a New York news conference Monday that his figures came from the head of Iraq's Red Crescent, the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross.
Iraq has said thousands of civilians have been killed. Allied commanders have provided no casualty estimates and refused today to comment on Clark's.
U.S. aircraft inflicted heavy damage on the Iraqi convoy of 25 to 50 vehicles it blasted overnight in southern Kuwait, an American military briefer said in Riyadh today. An Iraqi helicopter also was shot down overnight near Mosul, in northern Iraq, Marine Brig. Gen. Richard Neal said.
Neal told the briefing in Riyadh that allied planes flew 2,600 sorties today, raising the total since the war began Jan. 17 to 65,000. He said his earlier report that 69,000 sorties had been flown was an error.
The general also said that much of Iraq's heavy equipment at the front is rusty or wearing down. He based his conclusion on examinations of Iraqi military equipment damaged in the battle of Khafji last month.
He said the heavy allied bombing has apparently disrupted Iraqi maintenance programs. "I don't think anybody is his right mind is going to lift up the top of his engine compartment to check the oil while F-15s and B-52s are flying over," Neal said.
Allied bombing missions have been zeroing in on Iraqi ground forces and their supply routes, and the hardships of war are apparently driving more and more seasoned Iraqi troops to desert.
Today, eight Iraqi soldiers from the same unit surrendered to an Egyptian armored division after crossing the border from Kuwait - and braving a journey through their own minefields.
"Fighting, fighting, fighting, and for what? Nothing," said one.
Saddam met with his inner circle for a second time since Sunday, Iraq radio reported today. The radio did not say when they met or what was discussed.
Soviet envoy Yevgeny Primakov was to meet with Saddam in Baghdad today about a Kremlin initiative to end the war.
Iraq's parliament speaker, Saadi Mehdi Saleh, said today that Iraq "had managed to maintain its lethal developed weapons" despite the allied bombardment. He also urged allied forces to pull out of Saudi Arabia.
Bush was to meet today with the defense chiefs of Britain and France, principal allied partners, though White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the gathering did not signal a ground offensive was imminent.
by CNB