Was the US bombing Civilian Targets 6 months before the war?

[DoYouEverWonder]

According to the following report, the US may have bombed the Basra Airport and passenger terminals 6 months before the invasion of Iraq. To purposely target civilians is a gross violation of international law. This goes way beyond softening up an enemy before launching ground troops.



Monday September 30, 12:20 PM
Iraq says U.S. planes attack Basra airport again

By Hassan Hafidh

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq said on Sunday U.S. jets had raided the Basra civilian airport for the second time in a week, targeting its radar systems and the passenger terminals.

In Tampa, Florida, U.S. Central Command confirmed an attack but said it was aimed at a military mobile radar at Basra "in response to hostile acts".

An Iraqi Transport Ministry spokesman said in a statement to the official Iraqi News Agency: "Planes of the American enemy targeted and destroyed for the second time the civilian radar system of Basra airport."

The spokesman said the attack on the airport in Basra, 480 km southeast of Baghdad, took place on Sunday at 00:45 a.m. (2045 GMT on Saturday).

An Iraqi military spokesman said U.S. and British planes on Saturday night attacked "civilian and service" installations in Qalat Sikur, about 200 km southeast of Baghdad.

http://www.ccmep.org/2002_articles/Iraq/monday_september_30_bombing.htm

[Igel]

1. Yes, that would seem to be the question.

As far as the answer, it depends on who's telling the truth.

[shraby]

2. According to the Times, UK

We were bombing in the summer of 2002. The targets weren't mentioned, but it was before they went to the UN and before they had permission from Congress.

[Igel]

4. This is true.

But if there was a radar tracking station that actually "locked onto" US planes, whether it was mobile or not, it would have been a reasonable target under existing no-fly guidelines.

Whether or not we bombed the civilian airport qua civilian airport is still the question.

[LynnTheDem]

7. You mean the US-UK unilateral illegal "no-fly zones".

Yes I know the US msm and bushCartel always refer to them as the "UN-sanctioned no-fly zones". They lie.

There has never been any UN sanctioning of no-fly zones in Iraq.

[Igel]

10. Yes, and no.

Obviously Baghdad wasn't a no-fly zone.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2074302 seems to provide a decent summary.

Is a resolution saying "stop it!" (Res. 688), but devoid of teeth, sufficient for someone to take action saying they're "taking action to uphold Council resolution" (Res. 1441)?

The UN says no, which is a bad omen. The US says yes, which is no less a bad omen.

I'd ignore the UN, which is beside the point. In the absence of a peace treaty, and with just a ceasefire in place, the US's flying planes over Iraq has a murky status. Illegal? Is it a violation of a ceasefire? Is locking onto a plane a hostile act, or do you actually have to shoot at it? Does a history of shooting at US planes at make a difference?

Regardless of the propriety of our planes flying over Iraqi airspace, once there, they should be allowed defend themselves.

[LynnTheDem]

11. Exactly as you say; they have the right to defend themselves.

And as a SOVEREIGN nation, Iraq was legally entitled to shoot at any planes violating their sovereign airspace.

[evermind]

3. Seems highly likely

If you count a telephone exchange as a civilian target..

http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/050616Rogat-Loeb.shtml

--quote--

I follow Iraq pretty closely, but was taken aback when Charlie Clements, now head of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, described driving in a Baghdad neighborhood six months before the war "and a building would just explode, hit by a missile from 30,000 feet -'What is that building?'" Clements would ask. "'Oh, that's a telephone exchange.'" Later, at a conference at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, Clements heard a U.S. General boast "that he began taking out assets that could help in resisting an invasion at least six months before war was declared."

--end quote--

The article goes on to reference an article by Jeremy Scahill, The Other Bomb Drops in the Nation (web only) June 1, 2005, about the sudden step-up in US/UK bombing activity in September 2002. (The article also talks about attacks which hit civilian targets in, I'm sorry to say, the late 90's).

(Edit: I've just noticed that the article at progreessivetrail.org I quote from above, by Paul Rogat-Loeb, appears in expanded form in the SF Chronicle, at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/19/INGEOD8MJR1.DTL under the heading of "Iraq war started too early".)

[MadHound]

5. Hell, we were bombing civilian targets for years before we invaded

Between the sanctions and the thrice weekly bombing runs, over 500,000 innocent civilians, mostly women and children, were killed between '92 and '03.

[LynnTheDem]

6. Of course we did. We did in 1991, we did in 2002.

America doesn't believe in human rights, US laws, international laws, or the Geneva Accords.

[Terran1212]

8. The people really just need to overthrow these murderers

But we can't .... secret police (FBI, homeland security), visible police, army...

too hard to succeed in direct revolution

Voting them out will not work, military-industrial controls most candidates.

What's the solution?

[cthrumatrix]

9. are you impying our media is not informing us...? how unamerican

(sarcasm off)