U.S.: Iraq Is Firing Blanks

The Defense Department dismissed as baseless Wednesday an Iraqi claim that it hit a coalition aircraft enforcing a "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq.

"We were flying over the southern no-fly zone today but all planes returned safely to base (with) no indication that any were hit," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.

"Iraq has been known to make false claims in the past," he said. Davis said he was speaking for both the United States and Britain, which also patrols the exclusion zones in the north and south of Iraq.

Earlier Wednesday, Baghdad claimed that one of its surface-to-air missiles hit an allied jet fighter patrolling the skies over southern Iraq, but that the plane did not go down and was seen flying toward Saudi Arabia.

Iraq's official news agency quoted an unidentified military spokesman as saying: "Our heroic anti-aircraft missile units confronted the enemy warplanes and, with God's help, hit one of them."

The news agency did not say whether the plane hit was American or British.

U.S. and British aircraft patrol southern and northern "no-fly zones" set up after the 1991 Gulf war to prevent Iraqi forces from attacking Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south. They also were meant to provide early warning of any Iraqi movements toward Kuwait.

Iraq considers the zones illegal and has vowed to shoot down coalition planes.

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