World

Iraq Defies No-Fly

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

November 6, 2000 / 8:15 PM EST / CBS

For the second consecutive day, Iraq on Monday sent two domestic passenger flights from Baghdad to the cities of Basra and Mosul in defiance of no-fly zones enforced by U.S. and British warplanes since 1991.

The official Iraqi News Agency said the morning flight to Basra, 343 miles south of Baghdad, left with eight passengers on board, while the one to Mosul, 250 miles north of the capital, left about 30 minutes earlier with 14.

On Sunday, Iraq flew a total of 156 passengers to the two cities, using converted Russian-made military cargo aircraft. The type of aircraft used on Monday was not known.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jake Siewert said the United States does not object to civilian flights, "but the no-fly zones remain in effect and are designed to protect people on the ground there."

The United States says Iraqi military planes have often violated the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq with quick in-and-out forays since December 1998, when the Arab nation began challenging the patrols.

The new challenges marked the first civilian flights into the no-fly zones, which the United States and Britain say are needed to protect Kurdish and Shiite Muslim communities from Iraqi forces. Iraq says the zones, which are not mandated by the United Nations, violate its sovereignty and international law and has been firing missiles and anti-aircraft artillery at the U.S. and British warplanes.

The U.S.-British patrols bar fixed-wing Iraqi aircraft or helicopters from entering the zones. There has so far been no word on whether Iraq had given Britain and the United States advance notice of the domestic flights. The State Department said it was monitoring any Iraqi aviation to determine whether it poses a threat.

"We think that notice would be helpful in that we're maintaining a no-fly zone there designed to stop military aggression against Saddam Hussein's own people on the ground there and against the Kurds," Siewert said. "We're going to continue to have that no-fly zone in place."

The U.S. rejected any suggestion that sanctions on its Gulf War antagonist were collapsing.

"I continue to say that it's wrong," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said when asked at a regular briefing for his reaction to the suggestion the sanctions were unravelling.

While acknowledging the number of international flights into Baghdad had increased and that many more businessmen were travelling there, Boucher said the core sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait remained in place.

You have to "separate the incidental from the real," he said. "And the real is that the sanctions remain in place and remain effective."

Iraq's fleet of 15 Boeing airliners was moved to Jordan, Iran and Tunisia to escape bombing during the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait. They remain abroad.

Iraq announced the resumption of domestic flights on Oct. 30 and Transport Minister Ahmed Murada Ahmed Khalil said Sunday that flights will take off daily to the two cities.

It followed the arrival in Baghdad in recent weeks of dozens of international flights from non-governmental organizations and foreign countries seeking an end to U.N. sanctions imposed to punish Iraq for invading Kuwait in 1990.

In a move to encourage flights, Iraq said Monday it will refuel incoming aircraft free of charge and will not collect any airport tax or charges, a transportation ministry official told the official Iraqi News Agency.