U.S. Ready to Strike Iraq, Report Says
UPI
Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2000
WASHINGTON – The United States is prepared to respond with a military strike if Iraq attacks the minority Kurdish population in northern Iraq this fall, CNN reported Tuesday.
The report quoted Pentagon sources as saying the U.S. military is ready for at least three days of intense strikes against Iraq in such a scenario.
The Pentagon has alerted a U.S. Army Patriot missile battery that was recently placed on a "heightened state of readiness" for possible deployment to Israel, out of concern Iraq might fire Scud missiles at Israel in response to any U.S. military action, CNN said.
The network said contingency plans call for several days of attacks, but such strikes would not be as intense as the ones U.S.-led warplanes carried out in December 1998 in response to a dispute between Iraq and United Nations arms inspectors. In that military mission, U.S. and British forces struck 100 Iraqi targets in four days.
But CNN said U.S. officials monitoring Iraqi troop movements had not detected any unusual activity recently. The Washington Post on Friday quoted an unnamed Pentagon official as saying that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had acted erratically during previous U.S. election cycles and might do so again.
Hussein has traditionally sent his military on exercises in the fall when the weather cools in Iraq.
UPI
Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2000
WASHINGTON – The United States is prepared to respond with a military strike if Iraq attacks the minority Kurdish population in northern Iraq this fall, CNN reported Tuesday.
The report quoted Pentagon sources as saying the U.S. military is ready for at least three days of intense strikes against Iraq in such a scenario.
The Pentagon has alerted a U.S. Army Patriot missile battery that was recently placed on a "heightened state of readiness" for possible deployment to Israel, out of concern Iraq might fire Scud missiles at Israel in response to any U.S. military action, CNN said.
The network said contingency plans call for several days of attacks, but such strikes would not be as intense as the ones U.S.-led warplanes carried out in December 1998 in response to a dispute between Iraq and United Nations arms inspectors. In that military mission, U.S. and British forces struck 100 Iraqi targets in four days.
But CNN said U.S. officials monitoring Iraqi troop movements had not detected any unusual activity recently. The Washington Post on Friday quoted an unnamed Pentagon official as saying that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had acted erratically during previous U.S. election cycles and might do so again.
Hussein has traditionally sent his military on exercises in the fall when the weather cools in Iraq.