When Will The War Begin (page 3)

Here is just one of the many news stories I found when I just typed "Bombing Iraq" into the search engine. If you'll note according to this one, we have been at war since 2000...long before September 11th

Published on Monday, August 14, 2000 in the Manchester Guardian (UK)

US and Britain Resume Iraqi Bombing

by Brian Whitaker and John Aglionby

American and British aircraft renewed their bombing of Iraq at the weekend after a six-week lull - killing two people and hitting a railway station and food distribution centre, according to Baghdad.

The strikes came amid verbal attacks by Iraq on what it called "the hireling rulers in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait".

They also followed a double public relations coup in which Saddam Hussein last week welcomed the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez - the first democratically elected head of state to visit Baghdad since the 1991 war - and the president of Indonesia announced that he will shortly travel to Iraq.

Residents clear debris Saturday, Aug. 12, 2000, from around homes hit by an allied airstrike the previous day in Samawa, 270 kilometres (168 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Jassim Mohammed).

The first allied raid, on Friday night, struck Samawa, 170 miles south of Baghdad. Iraq said a warehouse containing food and other material imported under the UN's oil-for-food programme was hit. Two people died, 19 were injured and six houses badly damaged, it said.

A second raid on Saturday night hit the railway station in Samawa, causing some injuries, the official Iraqi news agency said.

But the US insisted that allied aircraft had targeted Iraqi command posts and surface-to-air missile sites after Iraq opened fire on planes patrolling the southern no-fly zone.

The Pentagon spokesman Rick Thomas said: "We seek to avoid injuries to civilians and damage to civilian facilities."

Allied planes have frequently bombed targets in the no-fly zones since Baghdad stepped up its defiance of the western-imposed restrictions in December 1998. Iraq says around 300 civilians have been killed and 900 wounded in these attacks.

America disputes these figures and accuses President Saddam of deliberately placing military sites close to civilian areas.

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that strikes on Iraq were only carried out "in response to direct threats to our aircraft".

But the Iraqi news agency described the strikes as a response to a speech last week in which President Saddam said his Gulf neighbours had "sold their souls" to the US and Israel.

In a protest letter to the UN, the foreign minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf accused the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments of "providing logistical support for the American and British forces, making them contributing partners in the aggression".

Baghdad turned up the rhetoric against its Gulf neighbours after the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Kuwait on August 2. Kuwait responded by putting its armed forces on alert.

Meanwhile, President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia said at the weekend that he would meet President Saddam in the coming weeks. The US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, condemned the decision. But Mr Wahid said: "We are not a lackey of the US. We are free to go anywhere."

Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000

SYN

After the 15th for sure!

Pork Chop

March 1

JH

Yerusalyim said the 22nd of feb. That is coming soon. I said the 18th of feb. So I was wrong.

Anybody with more dates???

Gerard

March 3-4th. Full moon needed for optimun night-vision equipment performance.

OUTLAW

Hey Yeru,my buds and I have been talking about this.Feb.21 is the decided date..Have you heard any talk of why the US just dosen`t shut down the Iraki borders?Those guys have no where to go,and they`re bombs go just far enough to hit their own population.You guys could lock-em down so tight they`d have no where to go..Stay safe Yeru,my best to you and your family...OUTLAW

When Will The War Begin

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