Iraq fires on allied patrol planes

WASHINGTON -- Iraq fired on U.S. and British warplanes patrolling a no-fly zone Friday, an act the United States considers a breach of a U.N. Security Council resolution, officials said. Coalition warplanes bombed an Iraqi air defense site in retaliation.

It was the first coalition strike on Iraq since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government accepted a Security Council resolution demanding that he disarm and allow inspectors to search for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Under the U.N. resolution, a material breach of the resolution must be reported to the Security Council for new debate -- and could be used as possible justification for U.S.-led military action to topple Hussein's government. According to the Associated Press, a U.S. official said the government considers the firing a material breach but could not say whether or when American officials would raise the issue with the United Nations.

President Bush and other U.S. officials have said they believe that Iraq's firing on coalition planes patrolling the northern and southern no-fly zones would violate the latest U.N. resolution.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials, however, have been vague about whether Iraqi hostile actions in the no-fly zones would be considered a trigger for a wider U.S.-led attack.

Lt. Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday evening that Iraq had fired surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft artillery at coalition planes. The shots came from Iraqi positions near the southern city of An Najaf, said Cmdr. Dan Gage, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa.

Coalition planes used precision-guided weapons to attack an air-defense communications facility near An Najaf about 85 miles southeast of Baghdad, a Pentagon statement said. The strike happened about 2:50 p.m. EST.

Iraq calls the no-fly zones a violation of its sovereignty and has repeatedly -- and unsuccessfully -- tried to shoot down the warplanes that patrol them.

At the United Nations, meanwhile, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix announced that U.N. inspections in Iraq will likely resume Nov. 27. Blix issued a warning to Hussein that the Security Council won't tolerate "cat and mouse" games.

Blix said the Security Council was offering Iraq "a last opportunity" to declare all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and he urged the Iraqi government to examine its archives, storage facilities and stocks before submitting its declaration to inspectors by Dec. 8.

The chief inspector said his staff would try to pay attention to Iraqi concerns about working during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but he stressed that no sites, including mosques, are excluded from inspections.

Blix said inspectors would consider the potential Nov. 27 start date as their first day of work under the terms of the U.N. resolution, which calls for him to report his findings 60 days later.

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