DOHA, Qatar (AP) -- Defense Secretary William Cohen encountered the first open opposition to nearly daily U.S. airstrikes over Iraq on Tuesday as a key U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf region said the strikes should end and the tension over Iraq eased peacefully.
Qatar's foreign minister, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani, said Qatar opposed the running air war over Iraq in which the United States has conducted scores of strikes on Iraq air defenses in response to Baghdad challenging U.S. enforcement of the deny-flight zones over northern and southern Iraq."We do not wish to see Iraq being bombed daily or these attacks, which are being made in the no-fly zone," the foreign minister said.
He spoke at a joint news conference with Cohen following an hour-long meeting about a variety of defense issues.
"We understand the position of the United States," Hamad said. But he added, "I cannot say we support the daily (attacks) in the no-fly zone."
The statements marked the first open opposition coming from any of the U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf to emerge during Cohen's weeklong swing through the region. Cohen and senior Pentagon officials had insisted that, up until Tuesday, leaders in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have voiced no explicit opposition to the U.S. actions.
During the news conference, Cohen hastily defended the U.S. attacks.
"There would be no daily attacks upon the triple-A (anti-aircraft) batteries or the radars or the surface-to-air missiles if Saddam Hussein were not trying to take down and destroy our aircraft," Cohen said.