Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 16, 1991 TAG: 9103160347
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A Bush administration official called the Iraqi flights - involving about six fighters flying to and from air fields inside the country - "a direct violation" of the tentative cease-fire pact hammered out by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and his Iraqi counterparts.
The rapid American response, which came only a day after the Iraqi flights were detected, appears certain to put further pressure on the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, as Kurdish and Shiite insurgencies continue throughout his war-ravaged country.
A published report Saturday said the U.S. military has warned Baghdad it may shoot down Iraqi warplanes being repositioned. President Bush this week also warned Iraq against using helicopters against rebel forces battling Saddam's troops.
The Washington Post, in today's editions, said Schwarzkopf had written Iraqi authorities that any fixed-wing combat aircraft that flew were subject to being shot down. Iraq had told him it would be moving some aircraft from place to place for unspecified purposes, the Post said.
At the same time, military commanders ordered significantly increased sorties by American F-15-E and F-16 aircraft from the largest air base in the gulf theater of operations, said Col. Cash Jaszczak, commander of the 4404th Tactical Fighting Wing. The American warplanes roared into the skies over Iraq throughout the day Friday.
"He [Saddam] is trying to do something to waffle," Jaszczak said in an interview at an allied air base in central Saudi Arabia. "We are demonstrating our presence . . . our resolve."
At the Pentagon, a top military official confirmed that U.S. air patrols had been increased, but declined to explain why. Another senior defense official, however, said the stepped-up flights were intended to convey the implicit threat that any Iraqi aircraft going aloft could be shot down.
The allies' decision to increase aircraft operations is the latest move in an escalating war of nerves between the U.S.-led coalition and Saddam's government, which has been slow to submit to a range of cease-fire conditions.
Some American troops have returned to positions deep inside Iraq, but a senior U.S. military official denied Friday that the move was intended to pressure Saddam.
Marine Brig. Gen. Richard Neal insisted the military had moved soldiers back to their most advanced positions in the Euphrates River valley only to be sure they could control the area pending a formal cease-fire agreement.
Also Friday, 499 Iraqi prisoners of war were driven in buses into their homeland from an isolated Saudi border crossing. A lone soldier changed his mind at the last minute and refused to go home.
And, in other developments related to the Gulf War:
The Kuwaiti government temporarily stopped issuing entry visas to journalists, saying there were too many in the emirate for its meager resources to handle.
> In Tehran, Iran, a senior Islamic cleric accused the United States of trying to install a pro-Western government in Iraq and warned against any outside interference there.
> In Washington, Gen. Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military would study the future of the combat reserves after failing to get some National Guard units battle-ready in time for the Gulf War.
Neal said the Army divisions - elements of the 101st Airborne and the 1st Cavalry Army divisions - had reoccupied positions they'd taken by the time the war ended on Feb. 28 in order to maintain troops on the ground rather than attempt to cover the area by helicopter reconnaissance.
Officers at first had thought they could cover the northern area well enough by helicopter, Neal said. But when Schwarzkopf learned what they had done, he ordered the troops back.
"He said, `No, I want you on the ground up there, not covering it by flying over it periodically,' " Neal said. He said Schwarzkopf "wanted them at those positions that they were at prior to the cessation of hostilities."
President Bush has said U.S.-led allied troops, who control 20 percent of Iraq's territory following the Gulf War, "are not going to be - all of them - out of there until there's a cease-fire, a formalized cease-fire."
by CNB