It was the first time since the no-fly zones were imposed after the 1991 Gulf War that the Pentagon has released imagery taken from unmanned surveillance planes or the gun cameras of US fighter aircraft.

Rumsfeld denied the release was politically motivated and dismissed as "nonsensical" a Russian complaint that stepped-up US air strikes in the no-fly zones were complicating diplomatic efforts on Iraq.

"It bothers the dickens out of me that American and British air crews are getting fired at day after day after day, with impunity," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference.

"And simultaneously the Iraqis are out telling the world that they want to have everyone inspect everything without conditions, which is patently false."

Meanwhile, UN and Iraqi officials were meeting in Vienna to discuss arrangements for a resumption of arms inspections.

General Richard Myers said Iraqi air defences have fired 67 times at US and British aircraft since Iraq delivered a letter to the UN Security Council on September 16 offering a resumption of UN arms inspections without conditions.

Myers said the Iraqis have managed to improve their air defence systems with material either smuggled in or brought in legally through the UN-managed oil-for-food program.

Three Iraqi MIG-25s have also been sighted in the southern no-fly zone, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

US and British air forces have responded with a flurry of air strikes on Iraqi air defences.

Myers said allied aircraft recently took out a major fibre-optic communications node and have had some success against Iraqi surface-to-air missiles, which are difficult to hit because they are not often sent into the no-fly zones and are moved back quickly after an attack.

"We've also gone after their command and control, their command-and-control headquarters and their communications buildings to try to degrade this. And we've had some success there. And we've had some success against their long-range radars," Myers said.

"But, you know, any air defence system has redundancy."

The Pentagon denied Iraqi claims that two of the strikes hit civilian radar installations at the Basra international airport, but acknowledged targeting mobile air defence radars on the military side of the airport.

None of the video images shown at the briefing were current, dating from September 2000 until October 2001.

The United States, Britain and France first imposed a no-fly zone north of the 36th parallel in 1991 to protect Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq.

The following year, the western powers imposed a no-fly zone south of the 32nd parallel to stop Iraqi attacks on minority Shi'ites in the south.

The United States and Britain then expanded the southern no-fly zone to the outskirts of Baghdad on the 33rd parallel in 1996 after Iraqi forces attacked the Kurds in northern Iraq. France opposed the expansion.

No UN resolution specifically authorised the no-fly zones, but Washington maintains that the authority to do so comes from the Security Council resolution that established cease-fire terms at the end of the Gulf War.

Related Links
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express