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U.S. fears friendly fire on U.N. inspectors
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. military officials expressed "serious and significant" concerns Tuesday about the risk that coalition warplanes patrolling Iraq's no-fly zones could accidentally strike U.N. inspection teams on the ground. Pentagon sources told CNN that coalition warplanes will need better guidance to avoid mistakes. At the United Nations, officials said there will be an "air liaison" on the ground talking with Iraqis and U.S. and British military authorities as inspectors move through Iraq. Discussions within the military were ongoing, according to one knowledgeable official, and additional "working level" discussions were expected with the U.N. U.N. officials said inspectors have operated in the no fly zones in the past. Coordination could be more difficult this time, however, because the inspectors do not plan to give advance notice before conducting their operations. That means that the U.N. teams could be moving by helicopter through restricted areas on short notice. Military sources said they would like for fighters patrolling the no-fly zones to have some type of notification of U.N. plans. "This is something CentCom has to address," one military official said, referring to the U.S. Central Command, which is involved in the coalition overflights. Coalition airstrikes have mainly targeted air defense sites, radars, missiles, artillery pieces and other command and control sites, which are not the types of facilities the inspectors are likely to visit. There are also concerns the Iraqi's could move weapons to an area where inspectors might be, thereby increasing the risk of accidental attack by warplanes looking for violations in no-fly zones. In April 1994 two Army Black Hawk helicopters were accidentally shot down over northern Iraq by two F-15s, leaving 26 people dead. An investigation found that the crews of the F-15s had misidentified the Black Hawks and that the AWACS did not intervene to correct the information. The Central Command said the Iraqis have fired on coalition aircraft more than 130 times so far this year. U.S. and British warplanes have responded with dozens of attacks on Iraqi air defense systems. Iraq claims to fire on planesIraq boasted Tuesday that it fired on coalition warplanes patrolling the no-fly zones, the second day in a row that Iraq claimed to have fired on planes, and the second day the Pentagon denied the report. Pentagon officials said no coalition planes flew in the northern zone Monday or Tuesday and that pilots in the southern zone reported no firings of anti-aircraft guns or surface-to-air missiles. The official Iraqi news agency, quoting an unnamed military spokesman, claimed Iraqi air defenses fired at dozens of sorties in both the north and south. White House officials have said continued attempts by Iraq to target coalition aircraft amounted to a "material breach" of the resolution that the U.N. Security Council passed November 8 calling for Iraq to disarm. U.N. resolution 1441, which authorized the new inspection regime, states in part that "Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the United Nations ... or of any member state taking action to uphold any council resolution." But U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said last week that the attacks did not constitute a material breach. Under the resolution, Iraq has until December 8 to provide a "currently accurate, full, and complete declaration" of any weapons of mass destruction program. More carriers in MideastAt some point in mid-December the U.S. Navy will have four aircraft carriers within striking distance of Iraq, but military officials emphasized they had no reason to believe the congregation of warships could mark the beginning of a war against Iraq. The assembling of such a large number of carriers is really an accident of the deployment schedule, and the overlap should only exist for a few days, officials said. It will happen as the USS George Washington begins to exit the Mediterranean at the same time the USS Truman enters. At the same time, the USS Abraham Lincoln, now deployed in the Persian Gulf, will begin a return to the West Coast of the United States, while the USS Constellation arrives for its assignment to the Persian Gulf region. CNN correspondents Barbara Starr and Jamie McIntyre and producer Liz Neisloss contributed to this report.
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