29 March - 4 April 2001
Issue No.527
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 29 March - 4 April 2001 Issue No.527 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Something is afoot at the base
A British military base involved in the 16 February bombing of Iraq deploys extra troops and fighter planes, writes Felicity Arbuthnot from London
The 16 February bombing on the outskirts of Baghdad by the United States and United Kingdom -- permanent members of the United Nations Security Council who acted without any UN mandate -- enraged not only Middle Eastern countries, but drew global hostility. On the diplomatic front, the US and Britain were denounced as "global tyrants," according to an editorial in the Jordan Times the following day. "US President George Bush," it added, "has chosen an unusual tactic to express the new US administration's desire for peace in the Middle East." Russian Duma Chairman Gennadiy Selenev, speaking in Baghdad, condemned the bombing as "a reckless, barbaric terrorist action." But according to Lindis Percy of the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB), the February raid may have been only a precursor for an attack on the scale of the massive bombardment of December 1998.
CAAB has learned that the largest contingent since the 1999 Balkans war -- almost 1,000 personnel, from the US Air Force base at Lakenheath in Suffolk -- is heading to Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudia Arabia or Al Jaber Air Base in Kuwait, from which the no-fly zones in southern Iraq are patrolled. Two hundred troops from the 48th Fighter Wing have already flown out. The whole contingent should be complete within the next week.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Lakenheath is also sending a further 10 F15E and 12 Strike Eagles to defend the no-fly zones, joining 10 other F-15Es from the base. In the early hours of 9 March, another 11 planes took off from Lakenheath, leading many to question whether the latest military manoeuvres -- which killed five people in Kuwait when the fatally accident-prone US military bombed their own observers -- were in fact a practice run for a further onslaught on Iraq.
Meanwhile, British and American pilots patrolling from the Incirlik base in Turkey have expressed displeasure with their mission, according to John Pilger, writing in this week's New Statesman. Speaking on a non-attributable basis to Dr Eric Herring, Iraq expert at Bristol University, pilots expressed rage at being ordered to return to their bases when the Turkish Air Force carried out bombing raids on the Kurds -- those they were told they were there to defend.
Pilot Mike Horn told the Washington Post last October, "You'd see Turkish F-15s and F-16s inbound, loaded to the gills with munitions -- then they'd come out half an hour later with their munitions expended. When the allied planes flew back," he said, "they would see burning villages, lots of smoke and fire."
Last December, reminds Pilger, over 10,000 Turkish troops invaded northern Iraq, killing numerous civilians. British and American planes assigned to protect the safe havens did nothing to prevent it -- indeed, most patrols were suspended to allow the Turks to get on with their killing. Over 3,000 villages have been destroyed by the Turks, three million displaced and tens of thousands killed.
Meanwhile, the UN has withdrawn its personnel from southern Iraq, due to the danger posed by allied bombings, and ordered them to travel only between 12.30 and 3pm in the north, to avoid being killed or maimed by the two UN Security Council members. There were 143 sorties between 23 and 28 February alone, according to Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz in a letter to the Security Council. There have been nearly 30,000 since December 1998.
Major Bako, a spokeswoman for RAF Lakenheath, described the recent operations to Al-Ahram Weekly as "a planned deployment to fulfil the ongoing mission required by Operation Southern Watch, to spread the work load." Lakenheath, she added, is the US Air Force's lead wing for Europe. The Jordan Times is not so sure: "We sure got George W Bush's message loud and clear. We're in for trying times."
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page