Saddam Hussein Vows Retaliation

Feb. 17 -- Saddam Hussein gathered his top advisers today to discuss plans for retaliating to Friday's airstrikes by American and British forces against military targets near Baghdad.

As Saddam plotted his revenge, the United States and Britain faced a torrent of criticism from around the world on Friday's action, which Iraqi officials say killed two people and injured as many 20 more.

Still, British and American leaders warned they could not rule out the possibility of future attacks on Iraq.

Russia, China and many Arab nations denounced the strikes. And two NATO allies, France and Turkey, expressed disappointment that they weren't told of the attack beforehand. France, which once patrolled Iraq's southern no-fly-zone along with American and British troops, said the action made a peaceful resolution to "the Iraq problem" more difficult.

Turkey, which allows American and British planes to use its bases to patrol the northern no-fly-zone in Iraq, also expressed concern about the raid. Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevi said no bases in his country were used in Friday's attack and urged U.S. and British leaders to meet in Turkey for an immediate review of their policy toward Iraq.

"It is sad that a need was felt to resort to such an action against Iraq and that civilians as well as military targets were harmed," Ecevi said.

Possibility of More Strikes

The United States and Britain say they launched the attack in self-defense because the Iraq boosted the frequency and sophistication of its military operations.

President George W. Bush, speaking in Mexico on Friday, downplayed the attack as part of routine operations in the area to enforce the northern and southern no-fly-zones.

Yet Friday's attack was the most aggressive action by coalition forces outside the southern no-fly-zone since Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, when U.S. and British forces launched hundreds of cruise missiles at suspected storage and production sites for weapons of mass destruction.

Since then, Hussein has kept United Nations weapons inspectors out of Iraq, despite promising to let them in at the end of the Gulf War. Iraq also has violated the no-fly-zones close to 700 times with only one sizeable response from coalition aircraft, in 1999.