Bush sends Saddam a credibility check

Despite the fuss made by the Bush administration over yesterday’s air strikes on Iraqi air defenses, they were pretty much business as usual.

That is, of course, a dangerous and controversial business. Twenty-four U.S. and British jets bombed five command-and-control centers just outside Baghdad yesterday.

But this sort of thing has been going on for just about a decade, now. In a nearly forgotten effort, American pilots have flown thousands of sorties in which they often see missile plumes and antiaircraft bursts. They often return fire.

The latest strikes seem to respond to a couple of provocations: Saddam Hussein has pulled his radar defenses out of the southern "no-fly" zone, where they have been badly pounded, and put them near Baghdad, where bombing is more likely to inspire international condemnation.

And the raids respond to rising criticism in Congress over the gradual collapse of the enforcement of sanctions stemming from the Gulf War.

If intensified activities of Iraqi air defenses represent an early challenge by Saddam of Bush’s resolve, as many observers anticipated, then perhaps this is a test passed. But Bush has a long way to go to establish that his Iraq policy is any more coherent than that of Bill Clinton.

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