Bacon

March 26, 1999
Web posted at: 12:13 a.m. EST (0513 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- While U.S. and NATO warplanes carry out punishing airstrikes against Yugoslavia, the normally conflict-rich Iraqi "no-fly zones" have fallen conspicuously silent.

After nearly three months of almost daily hostilities in the skies over Iraq, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said Thursday that Iraq appears to have taken at least a temporary break from provoking U.S. and British warplanes patrolling the no- fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.

"There have been no violations of the no-fly zone by the Iraqi forces for the last five days or so," Bacon said. "There have not been the provocations that we had seen up until the last week or so. I think it's one of the largest - - one of the longest quiet periods we've had since Desert Fox" in late December.

Bacon said that, "There have been some down days (during which patrols were not conducted) because of weather and other reasons, but we are still patrolling the no-fly zones, particularly in the south, aggressively."

"I can't psychoanalyze why (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein does what he does, but I can tell you this," Bacon said. "It's smart for him to stop attacking our planes because he was losing a lot of equipment. He was losing radars. He was losing missiles. And he was losing air defense guns. And he was losing command and control facilities. So, if he wants to hold on to his equipment, he should stop attacking the patrols."

Meanwhile, Britain proposed on Thursday that the United Nations take over the distribution of medical supplies in all of Iraq, noting that the area was the weakest in its humanitarian program.

Although there is no chance Iraq would agree to such a plan, British Ambassador to the U.N. Jeremy Greenstock was apparently putting Baghdad on notice for lags in getting medicines out of warehouses, a situation often criticized by U.N. monitors.

A British paper he submitted said the United Nations, which is distributing humanitarian goods in the Kurdish north of Iraq, should do the same for medical supplies and equipment in central and southern Iraq.

Greenstock said a series of proposals were being presented to panels set up by a divided Security Council in an effort to get unanimity on its Iraq policy, deadlocked since U.S.- British air strikes in mid-December.

Among the other proposals are to put Iraq's illegal oil sales under U.N. control and to allow Baghdad to delay payments to compensation fund for Gulf War victims so it would have more revenue for the U.N.-Iraqi "oil-for-food" plan.

The British proposals differ sharply from those advocated by France and Russia, who want Iraq to be able to import freely all goods except those related to weapons, the only plan Baghdad has considered viable.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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