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Christiane Amanpour: The British connection


Christiane Amanpour

CNN Senior International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour was in London when British and American planes struck targets around Baghdad on Friday.

Q: What was the British role in today's airstrikes?

AMANPOUR: Britain remains the United States' most staunch ally when it comes to policy on Iraq, whether it's military action against Iraq or maintaining the no-fly zones, or keeping the sanctions policy against Iraq, and so Britain was the only allied country that took part in Friday night's airstrikes against targets inside Iraq.

According to the British Ministry of Defense, six British fighter planes took part in this strike. They came from bases in Kuwait, accompanied by tankers which came from a base in Bahrain and escort aircraft which came from bases in Saudi Arabia. The bombers targeted six sites; one of them may have been hit twice, so perhaps we are talking about just five targets. The Americans say just five targets, so there's a bit of a discrepancy there. In any event, the British Ministry of Defense says that all its planes returned safely to base and they believe that they hit their targets successfully, although they will not be able to make a full and accurate bomb-damage assessment until daylight hours.

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MESSAGE BOARD

Iraq airstrike

Q: How was the operation coordinated between the United States and Britain?

AMANPOUR: In terms of how this was coordinated and authorized, the Ministry of Defense says that it was the Defense Minister Geoff Hoon who consulted with Washington, consulted with the military hierarchy in Britain, and authorized these strikes in participation with the United States earlier this week. Prime Minister Blair was kept in the loop, kept consulted but he did not personally consult or talk with the United States on this, this was done at a ministerial level. We understand that the entire operation was run by the United States; the U.S. military ran the command and control for this operation.

Q: What reasons has Britain given for its participation in the attacks?

AMANPOUR: A spokesman for Downing Street, the prime minister's office, says that this was a "targeted and measured response" to a dramatic increase in Iraqi attacks on allied planes flying and patrolling the no-fly zones. Britain says that Iraq has launched more attacks against allied planes patrolling the no-fly zone in the month of January of this year than it did in the whole of the year 2000. Britain judges that to be a significant increase in the Iraqi threat.

Q: Do you read anything into the timing of these attacks?

AMANPOUR: Now, this came at a very interesting time. It come, almost to the day, to the tenth anniversary of the end of the Gulf War, which was not concluded totally satisfactorily, according to many analysts. Yes, the allies manage to throw the Iraqis out of Kuwait; yes, they have contained Iraq, but Saddam Hussein remains in power and has outlasted now several U.S. administrations. It comes at a time when the new Secretary of State Colin Powell plans to visit the Gulf region, the Middle East and also as the United States, with its new president, is trying to reassess and review its policy towards Iraq.

The U.S. also says that it wants to re-energize sanctions against Iraq. This, many analysts believe, is going to be exceptionally difficult because almost all, not only U.S. allies, but almost all the countries around the word, particularly Arab neighbors, think at it is time for the sanctions regime to be lifted. Saddam Hussein in the last few weeks and months has been violating the sanctions almost with impunity. Planes have gone into Iraq carrying humanitarian supplies from Russia, from Europe, from Arab countries and the sanctions regime is gradually crumbling.

However, many American analysts, for instance Henry Kissinger tonight said that sanctions may be being violated but the U.S. has nothing to gain by abandoning the sanctions. Kissinger says that would just embolden other radical regimes in the region, and the British also say that they must keep the lid on Iraq's capability of producing weapons of mass destruction; they must contain they Iraqi regime as much as possible and the only weapon they have right now is sanctions, plus military responses to military threats.

Q: Do you see any change in approach by the new U.S. administration?

AMANPOUR: Basically, Iraq remains an outstanding and exceptionally difficult foreign policy challenge for the United States, for Britain, for the entire alliance. There is, according to many analysts, no good policy right now. The U.S. has decided that it is not going to go in there, with blazing guns and battalions of troops and overthrow the regime. So it is doing what it can short of that to pressure the regime.

At the same time, the Bush administration has just freed millions more dollars for the Iraqi opposition, to see whether they have any better luck in trying to conduct their operations on the ground in Iraq, trying to subvert the regime, maybe try to topple it. This has not proved successful in the past. But in general, right now, what you are seeing is a essentially a continuation of the Clinton policy.

Q: Could you explain the threat that Iraq poses, according to the United States and Britain?

AMANPOUR: Iraq, according to Britain and the United States and many other independent analysts, poses a threat by its declarations against many of its neighbors, threatening declarations against Israel, and also, they suspect, that Iraq is secretly trying to rebuild its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.