IRAQ FIRES AT U.S. PLANES U.S. RESPONDS WITH BOMBS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 10, 1993                   TAG: 9304100077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
IRAQ FIRES AT U.S. PLANES U.S. RESPONDS WITH BOMBS
In a possible new military challenge to President Clinton, Iraq aimed artillery fire Friday at four American fighter jets patrolling a northern "no-fly" zone, prompting a quick U.S. retaliatory strike with cluster bombs, U.S. military officials reported.
The U.S. warplanes - three F-16 Falcons and an F-4G Wild Weasel - returned safely to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey after the incident, they said.
Two of the F-16s dropped a total of four cluster bombs on the apparent source of the anti-aircraft fire, but it was not immediately clear whether they hit their target, said the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.
Iraq said one soldier was slightly wounded in the attack. It also denied having fired on the planes and called the U.S. raid a surprise.
A senior administration official said it was unclear whether the attack was an isolated, unauthorized incident or part of a calculated challenge. "I don't think we know what [the] motives are," the official said.
The attack, ending a 2 1/2-month quiet period, followed a recent shift in American policy to "depersonalize" the conflict. The Clinton administration dropped President Bush's insistance that sanctions would not be lifted until President Saddam Hussein was ousted.
Instead, the United States said its goal would be to ensure that the world maintained pressure on Iraq to comply with the full gamut of U.N. resolutions against it.
The shift was widely seen as a softening by the United States, but top U.S. officials insisted instead that they wanted to signal to Iraq's ruling Ba'ath Party that any successor would be held to the same U.N. standard.
The no-fly zone - north of the 36th parallel - was imposed by the U.S.-led allies of the Persian Gulf war in April 1991 to protect Kurdish rebels from Iraqi attacks.
"Iraq understands clearly what its obligations are in regard to the no-fly zone and will be held solely responsible for the serious consequences of failure to comply," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Saddam may be reacting to the realization that sanctions will not be lifted soon, the senior official said. "He was hoping to get a better deal and he's figuring out he hasn't."
While saying "we will take the necessary steps to defend ourselves," the official left the impression that the United States would wait for an Iraqi pattern of behavior to become clear before retaliating further.
In recent weeks, both the United States and its Middle East allies have focused attention on a renewed threat from Iran, which Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak this week labeled a greater threat than Iraq.
Friday, the U.S. aircraft were on a "routine monitoring mission" when they drew anti-aircraft artillery fire about two miles east of the Saddam hydroelectric dam, roughly 20 miles northwest of Mosul, U.S. military officials said.
"The Iraqi air-defense site was operational within the no-fly exclusion area," said an official at the Pentagon.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB