BY ANDREA STONE
USA Today
WASHINGTON — This time, U.S. forces did not blink.
After standing down three times in the past year in confrontations with Saddam Hussein over U.N. weapons inspections, U.S. and British forces unleashed Operation Desert Fox over Iraq Wednesday, Washington time.
Defense Secretary William Cohen said at a Pentagon briefing that the goal of the operation was to “degrade (Mr. Hussein's) capacity to threaten his neighbors and his capacity to deliver weapons of mass destruction as well as manufacture them.”
What Mr. Cohen called a “serious and sustained” airstrike began about 5 p.m. EST, which was 1 a.m. today in Baghdad. It included cruise missiles launched from U.S. ships and submarines and from B-52 bombers. U.S. Air Force and Navy combat aircraft and British Tornado jets also were taking part in the assault.
Mr. Cohen refused to identify targets of the assault.
However, military officials say likely targets include what Mr. Hussein calls “presidential palaces,” dozens of sites that inspectors believe shelter chemical and biological weaponry and the elements to make them.
At least one fell on an area near Mr. Hussein's biggest palace in Baghdad, witnesses and officials said. At least two people were killed and 30 were injured, a doctor said.
Also on the likely hit list: air defense missile sites, airfields, power lines and communication centers that allow Mr. Hussein to command Iraq's 430,000 troops.
But it was clear that the sudden attack could turn into the biggest use of force since Mr. Clinton took office.
The Pentagon said it already had sufficient forces in the region to carry out a strike. But Mr. Clinton, in announcing the action on television, said that “to limit the risk to our troops and our allies, I am ordering a sharp increase in our forces in the gulf.”
Additional attack jets, troops and Patriot anti-aircraft missiles, on alert since last month's crisis, were being sent to the gulf to bolster the 24,100 troops already there.
The current U.S. force in the region includes 22 ships and submarines, eight of which can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles. There are more than 200 military aircraft based on land and at sea. They include 15 Air Force B-52 bombers, also equipped with cruise missiles, that are based within striking distance on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. In addition, 2,700 Army troops are stationed in Kuwait, not far from the Iraqi border.
In his 6:15 p.m. briefing, Mr. Cohen said no U.S. casualties had been reported Wednesday evening and he had no way of knowing whether there were Iraqi casualties.
He said the Pentagon would supply no damage reports in the initial phase of the operation.
Mr. Cohen refused to put a time limit on the assault, but officials in the Pentagon said it could be over in four days. Sunday is when the Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins. Mr. Clinton said in his televised address that to start an attack during Ramadan would be “offensive” to the Iraqi people and other Arabs.
Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said planning for the attack began Nov. 15, the day after Iraqi leader Mr. Hussein announced that he would cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. On Nov. 14, U.S. aircraft were already on their way to Iraq when Mr. Clinton ordered them back just hours before they reached their targets.
Back then, Mr. Clinton warned Mr. Hussein that if he did not follow through on his pledge of cooperation with the inspectors, the U.S. would strike militarily without warning. Wednesday, it did.
“We do not use force lightly. We did not do so today,” Mr. Cohen told reporters. “But Iraq has exhausted patience. It has exhausted all options but the use of force.”
Said Gen. Shelton: “The time for watching has ended.”
Gen. Shelton said the strike, launched in the darkness of a nearly moonless night, came at a time when U.S. forces in the region were at a peak.
The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is expected to arrive in the gulf on Friday, joining the carrier USS Enterprise, which is already there. Eight B-52 bombers, each capable of carrying up to 20 cruise missiles, also recently arrived on Diego Garcia, where seven other bombers have been since the last crisis. They were scheduled to be home at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana by Christmas.
The forces already in the region will be augmented in the next week by a “crisis task force” that includes nearly 60 additional Air Force and Marine jet fighters, including 10 radar-avoiding F-117A stealth attack jets. Three more Patriot missile batteries, used to protect against possible Iraqi Scud missiles, are also being sent.
The Army is sending a battalion of light infantry troops from Fort Drum, N.Y., and experts in nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry from several bases to watch for any attack by Iraq against Kuwait, Israel or other neighbors in the region.
