Again that means more military and naval action

Again, that means more military and naval action.”We will be acting to ensure that implementation of sanctions is as rigorous as we can make it, for example through reinforced operations in the Gulf to intercept suspect traffic,” Mr Blair said. “We will sustain what have been among the most extensive sanctions in UN history,” Mr Clinton said. “We will maintain a strong military presence in the area, and we will remain ready to use it if Saddam tries to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction, strikes out at his neighbours, challenges allied aircraft, or moves against the Kurds,” Mr Clinton said.The second element is the maintenance of sanctions. The most visible element of the new plan is the dispatch of the British aircraft carrier HMS Invincible to the Gulf. George Robertson, the Defence Secretary, said: “It is a very big signal – we are not going away, we remain vigilant.”
The ship can mount air and land attacks, and carries up to 24 aircraft – usually a mix of Sea Harrier FA2 fighters, RAF Harrier GR7 bombers and Sea King helicopters.The carrier, which has been refitted since serving in the Falklands, has a crew of 1,200 men and women.There are four main elements in the new strategy of containment, laid out by the US President on Saturday and the Prime Minister yesterday in virtually identical speeches The first is the readiness to use force. TONY BLAIR and Bill Clinton have laid out a new strategy towards Saddam Hussein aimed at containing him militarily and preparing for his end.

The twelve RAF Tornado bombers flew 32 sorties and dropped some fifty 2,000 lb bombs.Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs), Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS)Total Sites Attacked: 32Destroyed/Damaged: 6Moderate/Light Damage: 8Under Assessment: 18Destroyed/Damaged: 11Moderate/Light Damage: 6Under Assessment: 3Destroyed/Severely Damaged: 7Moderate/Light Damage: 11Under Assessment: 0Total Sites Attacked: 11Destroyed/Damaged: 1Moderate/Light Damage: 9Under Assessment: 1Total Sites Attacked: 9Destroyed/Damaged: 3Moderate/Light Damage: 6Under Assessment: 0Total Sites Attacked: 5Destroyed/Damaged: 0Moderate/Light Damage: 5Under Assessment: 1Total Sites Attacked: 1Destroyed/Damaged: 0Moderate/Light Damage: 1Under Assessment: 0. These links can be restored within a few months, so there must have been some reason for wanting to weaken the communications in the short term.And the attacks on assault helicopter bases across the country also indicate that America wants to prevent Iraq from being able to respond to an insurgency.Statistics of WarAmerican and British aircraft flew 650 strike and support sorties 97 targets were hit in total US Navy launched more than 325 cruis missiles US Air Force launched more than 90 cruise missiles. The US destroyed communications facilities tying together the north and south of the country, for instance. Add to that the other targets, and it looks as if some other military action – either internal revolt, or some sort of limited intervention from outside – is being contemplated. There has obviously been an effort to remove or weaken the upper tier of the regime. The key command centres of the Republican Guard have been selected – corps and divisional headquarters. So have the main barracks and HQs of the Special Republican Guard, the units with the task of protecting the regime, and the headquarters and barracks of all of the intelligence organisations.These attacks on security organisations were explained as assaults on the weapons concealment programme, in which all of these organisations played a key role.But they are also important elements in the regime’s internal security.

But it would also be far harder to find these sites, and they might be easier for the Iraqis to patch up.The message seemed to be that London and Washington still fear that such weapons will be developed, but they want to stop Iraq from being able to deliver them.The Pentagon said that it believed it had delayed Iraq’s missile programme by a year – that implies it wants to revisit the strikes.The third category of targets was politico-military. The targets seem to have been principally sites associated with the weaponisation of chemical, nuclear and biological threats – missile factories and repair sites, guidance manufacturers and engine sites.The US avoided dual-use sites where the chemical or biological agents might have been prepared, partly because these might have entailed civilian casualties, partly because, it said, it feared releasing dangerous chemicals into the air. The US said that it wanted to clear an air corridor from the south of the country to the north.The second main category of attack was the sites associated with weapons of mass destruction. This would have been expected as part of any air attack – it clears the way for aircraft, rather than missiles, to be used. They have been more modest in their assessments, fearing the sort of backlash which came in 1991 when it was discovered that not everything that they said had been destroyed was even hit.The first main category of targets was the air defence system, which was moderately damaged.The US and Britain hit command centres, surface-to-air missiles, communication links and radar sites across the country. The focus on military units and communications facilities in the south of the country suggests that Washington and London believe there is a possibility of a revolt against the regime.
The US and Britain have released fairly extensive information about the targets of their strikes and the extent of the damage done.They have not claimed, as was sometimes the case during the 1991 Gulf War, total victory. BRITAIN AND the United States are claiming that they hit all of the targets on their list in four days of air strikes.

But it is difficult to survey the target lists without coming to the conclusion that this operation leaves the way open for some other form of military action against, or within, Iraq. One man summed up the views of all the others: “In the end, it was not really serious.”. It is unlikely to make them rise up against the government, even if they were able to do so against such a tightly organised security system This is the view of every Iraqi I have spoken to in Baghdad. Of course they get paid very little money.”Amidst such massive deprivation a few hundred missiles – frightening though they are as they strike – make little impact on the lives of ordinary Iraqis. There is not a lot left to destroy.In Saddam City, the huge working-class district of east Baghdad, a local doctor, who did not want to be named, said: “The economic collapse here even generates jobs. People no longer use the telephone, but send messages by hand.

Street cleaning is done by men with buckets not garbage trucks. Children over the age of one were getting a cup of tea and a piece of bread in the morning and nothing else.”In many ways Iraq has become less vulnerable to high technology attack because it has returned, after eight years of sanctions, to a pre-technological age. For a month, I was in a hospital in Kerbala (in the south) where they had no food to feed the mothers of newborn infants. Organisers for Salt Lake City, the host for the 2002 Winter Games, admit having a $400,000 (pounds 240,000) scholarship fund for IOC members’ families, and there is growing evidence of other favours for IOC members, including free medical care and gifts in excess of the IOC-imposed limit. “After this scandal, I believe that the IOC as a whole must accept that the system needs to change,” Mr Samaranch said.
The IOC has been shaken by accusations of corruption and vote-buying. A NEW WAY of selecting cities to host the Olympics can be expected soon in response to the widening bribery scandal, the president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, said last night. Last year Bobbi McCaughey, 29, gave birth to seven children in Iowa and another set of seven was born in Saudi Arabia this year.Mr Chukwu’s doctors believed she was carrying six or seven babies at most, but after the first was born on 8 December a scan showed seven more remained in the womb.The children are the first for Ms Chukwu and her husband, Ike The couple had been receiving fertility treatment..