As NATO members met in Prague, US and British jets bombed southern Iraq. Analysts said the rising frequency of such skirmishes amounted to an undeclared air war, with Western jets exerting dominance in the skies over Iraq.

The Pentagon said the target was Iraqi air defense radar, attacked because Iraqi forces had been spotted moving a missile battery into the southern no-fly zone.

Iraq said the Western planes bombed civilian targets and had been driven off by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.

Oil prices extended a week-long rally on the threat of war against OPEC producer Iraq and fresh violence in Israel. But dealers said the bullish impact of escalating conflict in the Middle East, which pumps a third of the world's oil, was dampened by rampant quota busting by OPEC cartel members.

Two American soldiers were shot and wounded by a Kuwaiti policeman, in the latest of a series of such incidents in a US ally expected to be a crucial launch pad for any attack on Iraq. In Lebanon, where anti-American feeling has also intensified amid the threat of a war on Iraq, an American missionary was shot dead by a suspected Islamist gunman.

Weapons inspector Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on his return to Vienna from Baghdad that Iraq had promised him full cooperation and understood "the seriousness of the situation."

AVOID WAR IF POSSIBLE

"I think we have to try every chance to avoid war if we can," he said.

US forces have little need of practical military help from NATO allies for any attack on Iraq, although airbases such as Turkey's are strategically important. But President Bush used the Prague talks to lobby NATO leaders to provide at least clear moral support.

The wording of Thursday's summit declaration, however, was watered down by alliance members wary of eventual war.

"NATO allies...were united in their commitment to take effective action to assist and support the efforts of the UN to ensure full and immediate compliance by Iraq...with (UN resolution) 1441," it said.

"We recall that the Security Council in this resolution has warned Iraq it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violation of its obligations," the statement added.

A French official in Prague was quick to express his government's desire to rein in US military plans. An Iraqi denial that it possesses weapons of mass destruction, in an arms inventory demanded by the UN by a December 8 deadline, would not justify war, the official said.

The official was responding to a warning by Bush on Wednesday that if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein denied in the inventory that Iraq has nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, he would enter his "final stage" and reap the most severe consequences.

"On December 8, we will take note of what Iraq says it has or does not have, and we will see if its behavior is consistent with its statement," the French official said. "If the inspectors found something afterwards, that would constitute a serious violation."

IRAQ DENIES POSSESSING WEAPONS

Saddam's government has so far flatly maintained it has no weapons of mass destruction.

Russia has also expressed concern over a war with Iraq, and Bush on Thursday appeared to extend a hand to President Vladimir Putin on the eve of a meeting between the two in St Petersburg.

Bush said in an interview broadcast by Russia's NTV television that Washington would respect Russian economic interests in Iraq if Saddam were removed. He said he was well aware of Russia's longstanding interests in Iraq, with extensive cooperation in the oil sector going back to Soviet times.

A senior Bush administration official said the White House was happy with the language in the Prague NATO declaration since it went beyond a mere political statement by citing the warning in the UN resolution of "serious consequences" for Iraq.

US officials have suggested that the ever more frequent clashes between Iraqi anti-aircraft gunners and patrolling US and British warplanes over Iraq could also be a breach of the UN resolution, a view not shared by other governments.

Analysts said that the air war could be said to have already begun. "What we've basically had is the first two to three weeks of the 1991 Gulf War already fought," said Paul Beaver, a London-based defense and security consultant.

IRAQ "CONFRONTS" PLANES

But a political commentary broadcast by Iraqi satellite television appeared to assert that Iraqi forces would continue to fire at Western planes.

The most senior Iraqi defector alive -- facing a possible war crimes case in Denmark over the gassing of Kurds -- told Reuters he had been powerless to stop the chemical attacks.

"The concept of resignation does not exist in Saddam's Iraq. You serve until Saddam tells you to stop. My family would have been also killed if I tried to step down," General Nizar al-Khazraji, former chief of staff of Iraqi army, said from his house in Soro, west of Copenhagen.

The White House said it had consulted more than 50 countries about what they might contribute to a war on Iraq, from soldiers to hard cash for postwar reconstruction.

A French official said after Bush met President Jacques Chirac that Paris would not commit itself before the UN Security Council had discussed any possible use of force.

NATO diplomats said Washington asked Germany to open its airspace and bases, posing a dilemma for its anti-war government but requested nothing that would involve German troops directly.

(China Daily November 22, 2002)