US sliding into war with Iraq?

The American military campaign against Iraq has been going on for more than a decade in the US- and British-enforced no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.

But the low-level warfare between allied pilots and Iraqi air-defense gunners is intensifying and could be considered the opening volleys of Gulf War II.

"Now [allied forces] are systematically going through the targets, and doing so would allow you to move more quickly to a more aggressive air campaign," says Tim Ripley, an air-power expert at the Centre for Defence and International Studies at Britain's University of Lancaster. "In almost every air war since [the 1991 Gulf War], we've seen a big campaign to destroy air defenses before a major air offensive. You could say this is actually happening now." This tactic was used in Kosovo and Afghanistan.

The US Air Force has flown nearly 50 missions so far this year. Among the targets in recent weeks was what Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs, called a "major node" of Iraq's Chinese-supplied fiber-optic network that links the air-defense system.

The latest strikes appear to be part of a changing pattern. Instead of going after the missile launchers that target them, allied pilots are blasting the command and communication centers and radar networks for those launchers. While that strategy was adopted haphazardly shortly after President Bush took office in early 2001, Iraq analysts agree that US responses now are far more focused.

Capping a series of high-profile airstrikes against Iraqi air defense targets – including two attacks at Basra airport in the south, and one that involved an armada of 100 aircraft last month – US planes last Thursday launched a new psychological operations campaign.

Flanked by jet fighters, a psy-ops plane dropped 120,000 leaflets over southern Iraq air-defense units – the first such drop in a year – warning, "The destruction experienced by your colleagues in other air defense locations" was the result of firing on US and British planes.

"No tracking or firing on these aircraft will be tolerated," the leaflet warned, in a tactic used during the first Gulf War and in Somalia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. "You could be next."

These planes were fired upon by Iraq on Thursday, and the Pentagon says it responded by hitting targets near Tallil, 160 miles southeast of Baghdad. Iraqi officials counter that "civilian installations" in the southern city of Nasseriyah were hit, leaving five dead and 11 wounded, and claimed that Iraqi fire forced "enemy warplanes to flee to their base in Kuwait."

The previous Tuesday, US and British planes hit a mobile radar unit near Al-Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad. The Saturday before, facilities at the airport of Basra had been hit for a second time.

While it is a "little bit early to say the conflict has started, [US strikes] are more oriented toward targets of opportunity that, yes, if you were ramping up a campaign, you would want to hit," says Gordon Adams, head of the Security Policy Studies Program at George Washington University.

The operation with 100 planes last month was a "signal" to Baghdad, Mr. Adams says: "This could crank up at anytime; we know where you are; expect more of this when we start to move into a more serious phase."

Over the years, the zones have shown their deterrence and "nuisance" value, says Adams. "The Iraqis are very good at reconstituting. They are getting better at illuminating [with radar] and running. They are more mobile, but [the no-fly zones] have made increasing Iraq's ability more difficult."

While President Bush warned on Saturday that if Iraq "persists in its defiance, the use of force may become unavoidable," that defiance occurs almost daily in the no-fly zones.

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