US war of nerves in Iraqi skies

Bush, who on Saturday confers with his staunchest ally against Iraq, British Premier Tony Blair, will challenge the United Nations next week to take quick, tough action to disarm Baghdad, a senior administration official said on Saturday.

As Bush and Blair prepared to told talks at Camp David to try to forge an international coalition for a possible attack on Iraq, the official said the President would lay out a strong case in his Sept. 12 speech to the General Assembly for deposing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

In a raid on Thursday, US and British planes attacked an Iraqi command-and-control post at a military airfield 390 km west of Baghdad. The Pentagon played down a Daily Telegraph report that 100 planes had been involved. The Pentagon said the strike was routine enforcement of ‘‘no-fly’’ zones. It added that 12 planes dropped 25 missiles against the command-and-control post at the Iraqi airfield.

‘‘This is the scenario to pressure him (Saddam) in a war of nerves,’’ said an Arab defence official of the stepped-up military operations. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, said in Paris daily Le Monde that returning the weapons inspectors who left in 1998 was not an end in itself.