The Hindu : International : `Civilians died in early Iraq raids'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 14, 2004

International

International

`Civilians died in early Iraq raids'

WASHINGTON, JUNE 13. The United States launched many more failed airstrikes on a far broader array of senior Iraqi leaders during the early days of the war last year than has previously been acknowledged, and some caused significant civilian casualties, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

Only a few of the 50 airstrikes have been described in public. All were unsuccessful, and many, including the two well-known raids on the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, and his sons, appear to have been undercut by poor intelligence, current and former government officials said.

The strikes, carried out against so-called high-value targets during a one-month period that began on March 19, 2003, used precision-guided munitions against at least 13 Iraqi leaders, including Izzat Ibrahim, Iraq's No. 2 official, the officials said.

Mr. Ibrahim is still at large, along with at least one other top official who was a target of the failed raids. That official, Maj. Gen. Rafi Abd al-Latif Tilfah, the former head of the Directorate of General Security, and Ibrahim are playing a leadership role in the anti-American insurgency, according to a briefing document prepared last month by the Defence Intelligence Agency.

The broad scope of the campaign and its failures, along with the civilian casualties, have not been acknowledged by the Bush administration.

A report in December by Human Rights Watch, based on a review of four strikes, concluded that the singling out of Iraqi leadership had ``resulted in dozens of civilian casualties that the United States could have prevented if it had taken additional precautions.''

The poor record in the strikes has raised questions about the intelligence they were based on, including whether that intelligence reflected deception on the part of Iraqis, the officials said.

The March 19, 2003, attempt to kill Mr. Hussein and his sons at the Dora Farms compound, south of Baghdad, remains a subject of particular contention.

A CIA officer reported, based primarily on information provided by satellite telephone from an Iraqi source, that Mr. Hussein was in an underground bunker at the site. That prompted the U.S. President, George Bush, to accelerate the timetable for the beginning of the war, giving the go-ahead to strikes by precision-guided bombs and cruise missiles, senior intelligence officials said.

But in an interview last summer, Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force vice chief of staff who directed the air campaign during the invasion, acknowledged that inspections after the war had concluded that no such bunker existed. Various internal reviews by the military and the CIA have still not resolved the question of whether Mr. Hussein was at the location at all.

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