Since then, US and British warplanes have continued their air patrols in Iraq's skies, insisting that the operations are necessary to contain Saddam's regime. But it is not difficult to see that these objectives, so vigorously pressed by the American officials, are far from successful. Some of these confrontations have turned into bloody battles that have resulted in the death of many innocent civilians caught in the clashes. The same day, American planes bombed several sites in northern Iraq, killing eight civilians and injuring nine others. Six days later US planes pounded a site near the town of Ba'shiqa in northern Iraq, again killing and wounding several civilians.
Questions pile up and confusion still reigns supreme.
Iraq claims that US pilots were targeting civilians. The US air force, however, denies Iraqi reports, saying it only targeted military sites. And as usual, the US army insists that the attacks were acts of self-defence against Iraqi provocation. When Iraqi tanks stormed the northern provincial capital of Irbil three years ago and destroyed bases of Saddam's US-backed opponents, the American planes did not stop Baghdad's incursion into the heartland of Kurdistan. Nor did US planes intervene when Saddam's troops attacked Shi'ite villages in the south, the last such incident having taken place in July, when Iraqi troops bulldozed a whole town in Rumaitha, a Shi'ite settlement in southern Iraq.