On Monday August 23, 1999, Iraqi forces charged the US military with attacking civilian sites in Iraq which led to the deaths of two Iraqi civilians in the town of Ba'shequa, 280 miles north of Bagdad. The US military contends that falling Iraqi anti-aircraft rounds killed the civilians.

Lt. Col. Mike Waters, a spokesman for Incirlik air base in southern Turkey where the US forces in the region are based, said, "Saddam Hussein is killing his own people by firing at us." Lt. Col. Waters appears to be mystified as to why Iraq would place its air defenses near its population centers. Waters claims that "the placement of these [air defense systems] in civilian populated areas is further evidence that the Iraqi military uses civilians as shields for their … weapons". Apparently Lt. Col. Waters believes that Iraq's air defenses should only be deployed in areas where there is nothing to defend.

This is not an isolated incident.

According to National Public Radio's All Things Considered, the US and Britain are currently engaged in "the world's biggest war from the air". During the eight months preceding this incident, American and British pilots have flown over 20,000 combat strike and support missions in Iraq - approximately two thirds as many missions as were flown in Yugoslavia. Little information about these "strikes" is making its way into the mainstream American press.

According to Steven Lee Meyer, a journalist who covers the Pentagon for the New York Times, the lack of attention is due mostly to two factors. First, the Pentagon has been downplaying the attacks, and secondly, the major media has been "distracted" by the bombing of Yugoslavia. He states that the bombing in Iraq has "become routine", though he admits that the strikes are obviously an infringement on Iraq's sovereignty.

France seems to agree. French "Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement has often complained at Cabinet meetings that France should not support a policy that victimizes innocent Iraqi civilians without being able to do anything to shake President Saddam Hussein's hold on power".

The US claims that its patrols are necessary to protect Kurdish and Shiite minorities from Iraqi forces, but this argument holds little weight. Turkey, where the US forces are based, has repeatedly attacked Kurdish minorities.