Iraq vigorously rejected Sunday Washington's explanation for Friday's US-British air strikes over Baghdad, said AFP.
"The American explanations are a laughable pretext. Their words are inadmissible and are condemned by the entire world," Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told reporters.
The US and Britain said they had bombed five military targets around Baghdad in an effort to take out Iraqi radar posts which were used to coordinate surface-to-air missile attacks against their aircrafts patrolling in southern Iraq.
Iraq has said three civilians were killed and 30 more injured in the raid.
When asked about the future of Iraq's dialogue with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Aziz said he would wait and see.
Iraqi foreign affairs minister, Mohammad Said al-Sahaf, demanded Saturday that the UN and its Security Council "condemn the American aggression which came at a moment when Iraq is preparing to embark on a comprehensive dialogue with the UN secretary general (Kofi Annan)," said AFP.
Sahhaf is expected to visit New York February 26 and 27 to launch talks with the UN on the terms for international arms inspections in Iraq and the lifting of sanctions which have been in place since August 1990 when Baghdad invaded Kuwait.
Meanwhile, Pentagon officials told the Washington Post newspaper Sunday that the raids were conducted on Friday specifically to avoid killing or injuring Chinese workers who are helping build the fiber-optic network that was about to link parts of the Iraqi air defense network.
The fiber-optic network threatened to make Iraq's antiaircraft system far more effective and greatly increase Iraq's ability to target aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone, the officials said.
"There was a potential to hit Chinese, but nobody works on Fridays there," one official told the Post.
Most of the Chinese workers are civilians, but some are military officers, said another Pentagon official.
Avoiding injury to Chinese citizens, according to the Post, has been a US military priority since an Air Force B-2 bomber hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during NATO's 1999 air campaign against Yugoslavia.
That bomb killed three people and injured 20, poisoning US-China relations for months.
The raid was the largest against Iraq in more than two years, although US and British planes patroll no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.
In Israel, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak met Sunday with security chiefs to discuss the US-British air strikes against Iraq, said Haaretz newspaper.
Barak called the meeting after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein described the operation a "Zionist plot," said the paper.
"Israeli citizens have no cause for concern," Barak said at the meeting, adding that there was no need for any special security measures.
He said Israel would keep a close watch on developments in the Gulf and would remain in contact with the United States for updates – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
