Iraq's Silent Counterattack

After coming under fire, U.S. warplanes bombed anti-aircraft facilities in northern Iraq Monday for the second time in as many days.

It was the latest in a series of clashes involving American and British jets and Iraqi air defenses after Baghdad said in December it would not recognize no-fly zones set up after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War.

The continuing clashes come almost nine years after Saddam Hussein committed an act of aggression and folly that should have meant doom for his regime, reports CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey.

The invasion of Kuwait did bring the dictator ignominy and isolation. His people, arguably among the best-educated, healthiest and hardest-working in the Middle East, have been reduced to destitution.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi armed forces are subject to almost daily attacks by allied aircraft. They are unable to move or fly outside a limited area of the country, a situation U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called "keeping Saddam in his box."

But from within that "box," the Iraqi leader looks as secure as ever, and it is the West, not he, that gives the impression of frustration.

CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey

After allied bombing runs, the Iraqis repair damage quickly -- meaning the same targets have to be hit again and again. Withstanding what Iraqi officials and media invariably term "American aggression" gives Saddam status in the Arab world, and helps divert domestic blame for the country's continued suffering and isolation.

The U.N.'s children agency, UNICEF, has found a significant deterioration in children's health since the end of the Gulf War, but the Iraqi people blame economic sanctions for acute shortages of medicine. They are largely unaware that Baghdad has refused to use a record windfall of profits under the oil-for-food agreement to buy and distribute food and medicine. Hence, an entire generation of Iraqis is growing up hating the West, America in particular.

The continued suffering of ordinary Iraqis wins Saddam sympathy in the Arab world and elsewhere for his relentless and obsessive campaign to end the sanctions.

But most worrisome to Washington is Saddam's true victory: there is no monitoring of his dreams and schemes to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Some officials believe Iraq may be acquiring the means to continue its program, and the U.S. is quietly backing down from its demans that Saddam agree to a full resumption of the UNSCOM inspection regime that has been suspended since an intense four-day allied bomb campaign last December.

A U.N. Security Council draft resolution by Britain and the Netherlands to create a new inspection agency is gaining American backing, but it faces opposition from France, Russia and China -- all of whom have an interest in a complete end to sanctions.

Saddam Hussein won power by the tactics and stamina of a street fighter: if you can't win outright, stand there and take the punishment until the other guy gets tired. Little by little, it seems to be paying off for him.

Written by Allen Pizzey
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