-Caveat Lector-
>From NY (NY) Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
<Picture: W>ASHINGTON -- American and British forces are taking care to
avoid hitting Iraqi factories suspected of producing chemical and
biological weapons, Pentagon officials said Thursday. They added that the
damage at military, intelligence and communications targets has been
extensive.
President Clinton ordered the air assault after Iraq refused to let United
Nations inspectors determine whether it had destroyed its stocks of
biological and chemical weapons. The Pentagon said Thursday that although
the Administration's ultimate aim was to remove those weapons, the strikes
avoided the plants out of fear of unleashing plumes of poisons and killing
civilians.
The bombing and missile strikes inflicted significant damage on Iraqi air
defenses, intelligence and security headquarters and barracks of the
Republican Guards, according to an early assessment offered at the Pentagon
Thursday. The strikes began Wednesday and resumed for a second night after
a daytime lull.
The attack, which represents the biggest military operation of Clinton's
presidency, appeared to surprise the Iraqis, who had done little to
disperse troops or weapons, Pentagon officials said. The Republican Guards
were a focus of the attack, but the officials said they could not estimate
the extent of casualties.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, who appeared at the Pentagon with Gen.
Henry H. Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the
United States did not intend to destroy suspected weapons plants that could
also make benign commercial products, even though those plants are
essential to develop covert chemical or biological weapons.
"We're not going to take a chance and try to target any facility that would
release any kind of horrific damage to innocent people," Cohen had said
earlier on "Today" on NBC-TV News.
Cohen's remarks underscored that even three or four days of heavy attacks,
which is what Pentagon planners envision, would not be enough to destroy
Iraq's ability to produce at least small amounts of weapons. Having
conceded that, Cohen and General Shelton outlined a mission intended to
weaken Hussein's Government and military, including missile sites and bases
central to launching chemical or biological weapons.
"We have no illusions of how difficult it is" to destroy the production of
chemical or biological weapons, Cohen said at the Pentagon. "We intend to
focus on the military aspects of his regime."
To that extent the first wave of strikes appeared to succeed, officials
said. Nearly 250 cruise missiles from seven warships and a submarine in the
Persian Gulf, followed by 40 sorties from fighters from the carrier
Enterprise, struck more than 50 targets in the first day of the attack,
General Shelton announced.
General Shelton displayed satellite photographs of extensive damage to two
targets in Baghdad, the military intelligence headquarters and Republican
Guard barracks.
Air Force fighters and bombers, including B-52's with cruise missiles, and
British jets based in Kuwait joined in the assault for the first time as
dusk fell in Baghdad.
In the capital sirens again sounded and antiaircraft fire speckled the dark
with flashes and bursts. Afterward explosions reverberated throughout the
center of the city.
Foreign Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf said the strikes had as targets
civilian areas of Baghdad and reported heavy casualties. al-Sahaf described
damage at several sites, including a battery factory and Government
buildings like the intelligence building and the security police
headquarters.
The Health Minister said that at least 25 people had died and that 75 had
been wounded in Baghdad.
One strike damaged a palace belonging to Saddam Hussein's daughter Hala,
who was uninjured, Iraqi officials reported.
"The last time I checked Saddam had something like 80 palaces," Cohen said
when asked whether the strikes focused on Hussein or his family.
The Pentagon offered few details. But officials said nearly 100
air-launched cruise missiles, each with 2,000-pound warheads, struck in
Iraq tonight. The officials said they were fired by B-52's based on the
British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, far from harm's way.
Other American and British pilots flew deep into Iraq today, officials
said.
By late Thursday night, after two days and dozens of strikes, no American
or British pilot had been lost.
Despite the antiaircraft bursts in Baghdad, few fighters apparently
encountered significant challenges from surface-to-air missiles, the
officials said, though most planes flew high enough to avoid low-level
threats.
Officials also said the initial strikes had succeeded in hitting their
first targets, air defenses, especially in the southern half of Iraq. "The
cruise missiles softened things up pretty well," one official said.
By the end of Thursday night, the American and British jets appeared to
strike targets at will.
The United States has 200 combat aircraft in the region, including F-16 and
F-15 strike fighters based in Kuwait, the B-52's on Diego Garcia and B-1
bombers temporarily stationed in Oman. Britain has 18 Tornado fighters,
based in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
There are also 13 warships in the gulf. For a second day the Enterprise
launched F-14, F-18 and EA-6B jets toward Iraq, joined Thursday by the
American and British fighters in Kuwait.
The six destroyers, one cruiser and one submarine that fired the Tomahawk
cruise missiles to start the attack virtually exhausted their arsenal and
cannot return to port in time to reload.
But reinforcements are on the way. A second carrier, the Carl Vinson, and
six additional warships that can fire Tomahawk cruise missiles surged
through the Red Sea Thursday and are expected to move into attack range by
Saturday.
The Pentagon has also dispatched additional aircraft, including nearly 12
F-117 Stealth fighters designed to evade radar and strike even heavily
defended targets with virtual impunity. Those planes could arrive in time
to join the strikes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
>From ZDNet (via USA Today)
12/17/98- Updated 11:40 AM ET
The Nation's Homepage
Iraqi cyber attack unlikely
From: ZDNN
Netizens can go to sleep tonight safe in the knowledge that their computers
will boot up in the morning.
If Iraq decides to launch some form of counterattack against the U.S.,
chances are it won't be computer-based, said the FBI and a security analyst
on Wednesday.
While acknowledging the potential for a cyber attack, "you could say that
about anything," said William Orvis, security analyst with the Department
of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC). "It would be just
as easy for Iraqi terrorists to make trains run off the track."
An FBI spokesperson agreed, saying that the Bureau did not plan to release
an advisory warning people about the threat of cyber-attack.
U.S. and British forces bombed the outskirts of Baghdad early Thursday
morning local time. Exactly what targets were bombed was not known at press
time.
Attack a possibility
At least one group thought that an attack was possible.
A report released on Monday by the Center for Strategic & International
Studies called for greater recognition of the threat posed by attacks and
terrorism conducted over the Internet. "No enemy can match the U.S.
military, as demonstrated by the Gulf War," stated the report. "Cyber
terrorism and cyber warfare thus become a plausible alternative," it
speculated.
The report lists various incidences where crackers -- hackers with
malicious intent -- broke into key U.S. systems, including last year's
so-called Analyzer intrusions that were initially thought to be an Iraqi
assault on Pentagon computers.
"Anything those hackers could do, our adversaries could do," said CIAC's
Orvis. Nonetheless, he noted that computer attacks are less extreme than
real-world terrorism. "It's not going to blow your computer up in front of
you and turn you into bloody pieces," he said. "But, an attack might slow
down pieces of the economy for a while until we find out who's doing it."
By Robert Lemos
Copyright © 1998, Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A<>E<>R
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes
but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
