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 TIMELINE | WHERE THEY STAND | INSIDE UNSCOM | MAPS FORCES IN THE GULF | VIDEO | BIOWEAPONS EXPLAINER |
Baghdad bans U.N. aircraft from landing
Cohen orders troop decrease
December 23, 1998Web posted at: 4:58 a.m. EDT (0858 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq slapped a ban on a United Nations flight scheduled to land in Baghdad on Wednesday as U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered a decrease of troops in the region.
UNIKOM - the Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission which monitors the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait - told CNN that it canceled a scheduled flight to Habaniya airport near Baghdad because it failed to receive the clearance required from the Iraqi government.
The UNIKOM official said his mission was trying to clarify whether that meant a blanket ban on flights.
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Other U.N. sources said Iraq had indicated that it could not now guarantee the safety of planes entering its airspace because of the recent airstrikes and ongoing military tension and therefore would not provide clearance.
U.N. special envoy Prakash Shah, who had planned on taking the aircraft out of the country was forced to leave Iraq by road.
The ban came as the commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf said evidence collected by U.S. intelligence indicated Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was more concerned about internal threats to his regime than about the damage he faced last week from air strikes.
The repositioning of Iraqi ground forces and last-minute shifts in their commanding officers indicated Hussein wanted to make sure the U.S. and British air attack did not spark a revolt in the ranks, said Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, head of the U.S. Central Command.
Zinni, visiting the Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, with Cohen, described the separation of Iraq's ground forces into four sectors under the command of ruthless officers loyal to Hussein.
"That decentralization was done so they insured they had control," Zinni said. "I think it was done more for internal reasons and internal military problems they thought they might have than for any military preparations they had for us."
Ritter: UNSCOM unlikely to return to Iraq
Also Wednesday, former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter accused the United States of having maneuvered U.N. arms inspectors in Iraq into providing a pretext for the attacks on Baghdad it and Britain launched last week.
"I believe that this inspection was rushed through, and the sites weren't chosen for disarmament reasons, but rather to be provocative in nature so Iraq would respond in a predictable fashion," Ritter told BBC radio in an interview.
"That response would be used as a justification for military action."
Ritter was a high-profile member of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with finding and destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction until he resigned in August in a dispute over the conduct of weapons inspections.
Ritter said UNSCOM chief inspector Richard Butler was partly responsible for putting the team into a position where it appeared unlikely to be allowed back into Iraq.
He had "allowed the United States to manipulate the work of UNSCOM in such a fashion as to justify an airstrike."
The United States and Britain conducted four nights of attacks on Iraqi military installations ending on Saturday.
They explained the action on grounds that Hussein was in breach of U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring him to cooperate with UNSCOM inspectors looking for equipment to make weapons of mass destruction.
Threats from groundfire to U.S. planes
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British and American forces that participated in the four days of strikes on Iraq suffered no casualties. But Zinni, for the first time, said anti-aircraft fire was heavy enough in some places to cause combat pilots to abandon their targets.
As the strikes approached, Hussein appeared preoccupied with maintaining order within his own ranks, Zinni said. Sudden shifts in unit commanding officers and a trend toward putting Hussein's closest lieutenants in charge was done "to prevent loyalties from being created and to prevent plotting," Zinni said.
Pop and country music stars Carole King, Mary Chapin Carpenter and David Ball joined Cohen on the trip. They were scheduled to entertain sailors and Marines aboard the carrier USS Enterprise later Wednesday.
The entertainers volunteered their services, and expenses were paid by the United Services Organization, the voluntary group that serves members of the military and their families.
"A lot of people in America tend to take the military for granted," said King, whose pop songs include "Under the Boardwalk" and "You've Got a Friend." She was making her first performance before troops.
"I'm not pro-war. I'm in favor of the idea that we have people around to make sure that there isn't one," the singer- songwriter said.
The USS Enterprise and its battle group of missile-launching ships are cycling out of the Gulf in the next few days en route to the Mediterranean Sea as the USS Carl Vinson carrier battle group cycles in.
Cohen approved the return to their U.S. bases of the six B-1 bombers, 10 A-10 anti-tank aircraft, 10 KC-10 tankers now on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, and 13 of 15 B-52 bombers, also on Diego Garcia.
Even with these departures, a force of between 17,000 and 20,000 will remain on station in the region indefinitely, including about 4,000 U.S. airmen at this air base in the central Saudi desert.
Cohen and Zinni headed for Kuwait after their visit to the airbase as part of a three-day Christmas visit to Gulf troops.
Correspondent Jane Arraf, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.