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Iraqi Forces Continue Strikes Against Coalition Aircraft
Friday, October 11, 2002
By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

The admiral showed gun camera footage of coalition responses to Iraqi firings this week at a Pentagon news briefing Friday. The first showed an F-16 dropping on a surface-to-air missile launcher. Another showed coalition aircraft dropping ordnance on a mobile air defense radar near al Basra.

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
Iraqi forces have fired on U.S. and coalition aircraft 122 times since Sept. 16, when Saddam Hussein sent a letter to the United Nations inviting weapons inspectors back into Iraq.

"Of those 122 firings, 33 were against aircraft flying in Operation Northern Watch and 89 were against Operation Southern Watch coalition aircraft," Rear Adm. David Gove, the Joint Staff's deputy director for global operations, said today.

Over the past three years, Gove said, the overall numbers have been "about consistent," Gove said. "There's been a remarkable number since Sept. 16 in terms of near continuous engagements in the northern and southern no-fly zones."

Coalition aircraft respond to the attacks against the shooters, the launch facility, he added, as well as against the integrated air defense system that supports the targeting of coalition aircraft. "We've been very open about (the fact) that we're going to go after the infrastructure and help degrade the capability that targets coalition aircraft whenever they're fired on," Gove said.
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

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