Trouble For Sure

THE FOUR AMERICAN FIGHTER JETS WERE ON A ROUtine monitoring flight over northern Iraq when ground radar locked on -- a clear sign of trouble. The next message was entirely unambiguous: several rounds of artillery fire from an Iraqi emplacement near the Saddam Dam. Though they were not hit, the American pilots followed standing orders and answered in kind, dropping four cluster bombs on the firing battery. The fighters, three F-16s and one F-4G, then returned to Incirlik air base in Turkey.

It was the first exchange of hostile fire over the no-fly zone, imposed two years ago by U.S.-led allies to protect Iraq's Kurds, since Iraq fired on two French Mirage reconnaissance planes on Feb. 3. Why the sudden new outburst? U.S. officials professed to see no special reason, speculating that Saddam Hussein was simply beginning a new round in his strategy of "cheat and retreat." Iraq claimed that one of its soldiers was wounded in the incident but denied initiating it. A Foreign Ministry spokesman called the U.S. response "aggressive and provocative behavior."