China denies Iraq defense link

Pentagon version of an Iraqi radar in Baghdad

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- China has denied the Pentagon's allegations that the country is helping Iraq upgrade its air defenses.

Pentagon sources say Friday's joint U.S.-Britain air strikes on Baghdad were prompted by China's move to upgrade Iraqi military telecommunications system which would dramatically increase Iraq's threat to U.S. and British planes patrolling the southern no-fly zone.

Sources say Chinese technical experts have been building a fiber optic system to link Iraq's long-range radars, to give better targeting information to Iraqi gunners.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said he had no knowledge of Chinese military and civilian experts supposedly helping Iraq's military install the cables.

'Complying with resolutions'

The Chinese embassy in Baghdad denied the Pentagon claims. "Do you think we would do that?" an embassy official asked CNN. "We are complying with U.N. resolutions."

He said most of China's telecommunications contracts had been held up or blocked by the U.N. sanctions committee. And work had not started on any of the telecommunications projects previously approved by the U.N.

A senior Pentagon official told CNN the attacks on five air-defense sites were timed on Friday to avoid killing or injuring Chinese civilian and military workers who were laying the underground cables.

"On a Friday you have the lowest number of people present -- both Iraqis and Chinese," the senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The goal wasn't to kill people; the goal was to bust up stuff."

The official said some portion of the fiber-optic network already was operating at the time of the bombing.

Tense relations

Sources say the Pentagon exercised extra care in Friday's strikes, attacking on the Muslim Sabbath to minimize the chance of killing Chinese or Iraqis, given the tense U.S.-China relations followed the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

The Pentagon, denying the China allegations, says Iraq's Early Warning Radar System was "moderately disrupted", while the communication links between the radars were "significantly disrupted".

China, a security council member which has called for an end to sanctions against Iraq, receives a large share of contracts for Iraq under the U.N.'s oil-for-food program.

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Pentagon sources say China helping Iraq

U.S. Defense Department
Chinese Foreign Ministry

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