Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 28, 1993 TAG: 9306280108
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The New York Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
President Clinton expressed regret that Iraqi civilians had been killed in the nighttime raid, staged in retaliation for what he said was Iraq's attempt to assassinate former President Bush while he was visiting Kuwait in April. But on his way to church, Clinton said, "We sent the message we needed to send."
Senior Pentagon officials said 16 of the 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from warships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea had hit the targets in the top-security intelligence headquarters at which they were aimed. Four others hit elsewhere in the compound, they said.
Three missiles slammed into residential housing outside the complex in downtown Baghdad, the officials said.
Military officials said the wing containing the offices of the intelligence agency's leaders was "near complete destruction," and that nearby administrative and support buildings with computers and communications equipment had suffered "very severe damage."
The official Iraqi News Agency reported that eight people had been killed and at least a dozen others wounded, a casualty count American officials did not dispute. Iraq said it had shot down one of the Tomahawks, which each have a 984-pound warhead of conventional explosives.
"Our preliminary assessment is that we hit the targets we intended and inflicted severe damage," Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on the NBC program "Meet the Press."
By firing unmanned Tomahawk cruise missiles from two Navy ships hundreds of miles from Baghdad, Clinton chose the least risky of several military options to punish the government of President Saddam Hussein.
Military officials said it was a proportionate attack aimed specifically at the agency that planned the attempt on Bush's life. The strike followed weeks of preparation and was planned with such secrecy that no more than five top White House aides knew of the discussions, administration officials said.
Clinton's action drew bipartisan praise from Congress. "We went after the place where much of these dastardly deeds are contemplated and planned," said Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, the Republican minority leader, also praised the action.
American officials acknowledged that the attack amounted more to a symbolic show of force than to an attempt to kill Saddam or an overwhelming air barrage similar to what American-led forces carried out against Iraq during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
"You can't go around bombing an entire country hoping to hit one individual," Powell said. But he said the limited strike against one of Saddam's power bases demonstrated Washington's willingness "to smack him whenever it's necessary either because of his violation of U.N. resolutions or, in this case, undertaking a terrorist act that was directed against the American people."
Intelligence officials said Sunday that they were watching Iraq's forces for any signs of retaliation. "It's really difficult to predict what he's going to do," Defense Secretary Les Aspin said Sunday on CNN. "You've got to be ready for almost anything."
The Pentagon said that as a precaution it was sending the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and the cruiser Hue City from the Adriatic Sea to the Red Sea.
Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council issued a statement calling the attack "cowardly aggression."
At U.N. headquarters in New York, the United States sought to rally international support for the attack. U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright presented six sets of photographs of a car bomb and explosive devices that she said were to be used to assassinate Bush during his visit to Kuwait in April.
Albright said the United States was not asking for the Security Council's endorsement. There was no vote or resolution.
Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoun called on the council to condemn the U.S. attack. Iraq denies its intelligence agents tried to kill Bush and says Washington fabricated the plot to justify the use of military force against Baghdad.
"I wish the position of American policies were as strict toward the crimes that the Serbs carry out" in what once was Yugoslavia, said Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.
Bush said he supported the attack, calling the alleged plot against his life a threat to U.S. sovereignty.
by CNB