Iraq Tries A Fast One On U.S. Plane

After months of taking half-hearted pot shots at U.S. aircraft, Iraq, on Friday made a much more serious attempt to shoot down an American plane, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.

An Iraqi jet flew into the southern no-fly zone and when U.S. planes moved to intercept it, quickly retreated in a direction that would have taken the Americans over a cluster of surface to air missiles. The U.S. aircraft did not give chase for fear of falling into what pilots call a "SAM" trap.

An aerial ambush is much more likely to succeed than the usual Iraqi tactic of simply firing in the air and hoping to hit something.

It's the first time since the current crisis began that Iraq has tried to set a "SAM" trap, and Saddam Hussein may not understand what a risk he is taking. Pentagon officials say that if he were to shoot down an American aircraft now the U.S. would not wait any longer to go to war. Combat aircraft based in the U.S. have begun receiving alert orders telling them to be ready to deploy to the Persian Gulf by the middle of January.

Analysts have begun complaining, meanwhile, that much of the information supplied by Iraq is old material from 1990 or before. The 12,000 page declaration Iraq turned over last week will not by itself trigger a war even though u.s. officials say it fails to account for hundreds of chemical and biological weapons.

The U.N. resolution states it would take both "false statements or omissions in the declarations . . . and failure to cooperate fully" with the weapons inspections before Iraq could be found guilty.

So far Saddam seems to be cooperating with the inspections, although U.S. officials expect that to end the moment the U.N. demands that dozens of Iraqi scientists and their families -- hundreds of people in all -- be brought out of Iraq for questioning.

But,weapons inspectors did encounter their first significant delay on Friday, when trying to enter certain rooms within a newly declared site -- Iraq's Communicable Disease Control Center. The team had to use its hotline to higher Baghdad authorities for the first time since inspections resumed last month.

Team members had to wait two hours for Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, their Iraqi liaison, to arrive.

At that point inspectors and Amin agreed the rooms would be sealed and the U.N. team would return later, perhaps Saturday, to inspect them.

"It is a newly declared site and there was a need for tagging of some of its equipment," Amin, head of the National Monitoring Directorate, told reporters outside the building. "There is no problem."

Another Iraqi official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the problem was the result of the inspections taking place on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, when the keys for the locked rooms were not readily available.

In Washington, U.S. officials said Iraq's weapons declaration does not account for a number of missing chemical and biological weapons and fails to explain purchases U.S. intelligence believes are related to Saddam Hussein's nuclear program.

Iraq used the lengthy document to support its contention — disputed by the United States — that Saddam's regime possesses none of these weapons of mass destruction, the officials said late Thursday.

The tentative U.S. conclusion that the report is lacking sets the stage for a critical set of decisions by President Bush, who views the declaration as Saddam's last chance to come clean, officials said.

Mr. Bush's options include providing American intelligence on suspected weapons programs to U.N. inspectors or helping the world body attempt to prove that Saddam is lying, which was required under a U.S.-backed U.N. resolution that also forced inspectors back into Iraq after a four-year lapse, the officials said, speaking only on condition of anonymity

Mr. Bush could also simply seek more information from Iraq, a route White House officials said earlier Thursday the president would not take.

After a more thorough review of the declaration, the president also could declare that Saddam was in "material breach" of the resolution, and that war was required to disarm him, officials said.

U.S. allies would condemn that step, but administration hard-liners support it.

A new Chicago tribune poll shows half of Americans would support a war — even though most feel Mr. Bush needs to make a stronger case for the use of force.

Under the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, false statements or omissions in the declaration — coupled with a failure to comply with inspections — would be a "material breach" of Iraq's obligations. Newly admitted weapons inspectors have not publicly accused Iraq of obstructing their efforts.

The Iraqi report largely rehashes old declarations and reports and contains little new information, officials said. It has done nothing to alter the U.S. belief that Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons and is pursuing nuclear weapons, officials said.

The report, being analyzed at the CIA and elsewhere, does not account for quantities of chemical and biological agents that were missing when U.N. inspectors were expelled from Iraq in 1998, officials said. Hundreds of mustard gas shells, for example, remain unaccounted for, officials said.

It also does not explain a number of Iraqi acquisitions that the United States suspects are related to Saddam's nuclear program, officials said. This includes the purchase of uranium in Africa, as well as purchases in Western countries of high-tech equipment that could be used in a uranium enrichment program, officials said. Enriched uranium or plutonium is a necessary requirement for a nuclear weapon.

White House and CIA officials refused comment on the assessment, first reported by The New York Times in Friday editions. However, Bush himself told ABC News his gut feeling about Saddam was that "he is a man who deceives, denies."

The United States and Russia turned in their preliminary assessments Thursday to chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and ElBaradei Mohamed of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Three other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, France and China — are supposed to provide their assessments as well by Friday.

Blix and ElBaradei then will remove sensitive sections of the declaration and distribute copies Monday to the 10 other members of the council.

In a round of inspections in the 1990s, after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, the United Nations destroyed tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

An Iraqi general Thursday refuted intelligence reports that inspectors had discovered banned weapons programs at 10 sites, and also denied a newspaper story that Iraq had sold VX nerve gas to an al Qaeda affiliate.

Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin called the intelligence reports "just a lie" and the newspaper report "a ridiculous assumption from the American administration."

The White House steered clear of the assertion that Iraq had shipped chemical weapons to the Islamic extremist group.

"Weaponry to al Qaeda … we know al Qaeda is seeking it. But beyond that, I just don't get into intelligence information," said spokesman Ari Fleischer Thursday.