Same day -- On the same date as the Chalabi meeting, about 50 U.S. and British jets bomb radar and other sites around Baghdad. A wave of F-15 and F/A 18 fighter bombers takes off from the aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman, in the Persian Gulf. Aerial refuellers, command-and-control planes and electronic jammers take off from bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, joined by four RAF Tornado jets from the Ali Al-Salem base in Kuwait flying into Iraqi airspace over southern Iraq.

All planes return safely after seventy minutes, having taken out five anti-aircraft sites on the outskirts of Baghdad with AGM-130 bombs. The administration sidesteps international law on invading Iraq's airspace by using guided missiles loosed from up to 50 miles away on the fringe of the no-fly zones.

(“The Family Business,” THE SCOTSMAN, Feb. 18, 2001)

Feb. 16, 2001 – White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer defends the U.S. air strikes against Iraq:

“Q    Did something happen to provoke this, Ari, did some incident happen to provoke this?

     MR. FLEISCHER:  It was the existence of radar facilities that posed a threat to our aircraft, that identified our aircraft.  There is a simultaneous briefing going on at the Pentagon as we speak.  The Pentagon is briefing at 2:30 p.m. and will provide additional detailed information about the strikes and about the targets.

     Q    For the President to have specifically approved it indicates it's more than just a routine thing, though, because rules of engagement --

MR. FLEISCHER:  No, it is routine.  In this case, the aircraft would be on patrol in the southern no-fly zone, and that's why it required the President's authorization.  That has happened before; that is, unfortunately, routine.

     Q    Do we know whether these were newly-constructed radar?

     MR. FLEISCHER:  DOD will be taking that.”

Transcripts of White House press conferences show that American and foreign reporters in the White House press corps have actually asked hundreds of good questions over recent years. Unfortunately, any question perceived as critical or negative, regardless of the importance or gravity of the topic, has been treated by the television networks as though it were propaganda, and the public has by and large not been allowed to see and hear it broadcast on national evening news. The networks were influenced into this practice by savage and well-funded assaults of the ‘noise machine’ against so-called ‘liberal media.’

The February, 2001, air strikes against Iraq serve the purpose of testing the U.S. media response. The probe effectively reveals that indeed, administration moves against Iraq will meet with little or no widespread scrutiny. At the beginning of the Bush administration, media attention on the White House is largely focused on bogus stories about the outgoing Clinton administration like the ‘missing W’ typewriters, and on new personnel appointments, but with little reporting that so many new people want war with Iraq.

Feb. 21, 2001 -- Bush nominates John R. Bolton as Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, Dept of State. Bolton, who later leads the administration’s opposition to an International Criminal Court, had been a director of PNAC, also signed the 1998 PNAC letter calling for regime change in Iraq and is another longtime neoconservative hawk. He will later be appointed to an interim position as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Feb. 28, 2001 – The Senate confirms Paul Wolfowitz as Deputy Secretary of Defense. Wolfowitz says at his confirmation hearing that U.S. national interests would be best served by unseating Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.