BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Initial Iraqi reports indicated Sunday that at least five people were killed, including a famous painter, and tens were wounded as a result of U.S. missile attack on the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.
Iraq complained to the United Nations' Security Council and urged it to stop the repeated U.S. military 'barbaric' operations on the Arab country, the official Iraqi News Agency said in reports monitored in Beirut.
Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf said in a letter to Security Council President Juan Antonio Barnofo that U.S. spying planes flew over Baghdad for long hours in the past few days 'under the cover of carrying out surveillance missions for U.N. concerned committees.'
'It was proved that such planes were used for spying purposes and to prepare for U.S. aggression on Iraq,' said the letter which was delivered by Iraq's Ambassador to the U.N. Nizar Hamdoun.
Sahhaf said the 'United Nations' silence regarding U.S. crimes against Iraq and the people of the world has encouraged Washington to impose its hegemony on the world, using force, organized terrorism and blackmail.'
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein presided a joint meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council and the Arab Baath Party command to discuss the U.S. strike.
Hussein approved immediate measures to treat the wounded whose houses were directly hit during the attack, INA said.
INA quoted official sources as saying that the final casualty toll was unknown as rescue operations were still underway.
INA reporters counted the killing of at least five people, including Iraqi painter Leila Al Attar, Director-General of Saddam's Arts Center.
Al Attar's husband and housekeeper as well as a 38-year-old Iraqi citizen and his infant were also killed, INA said.
Al Attar's sister, daughter and son were rescued while efforts continued to pull her body from among the rubble.
A statement of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council confirmed the U.S. attack on Baghdad.
'At dawn, the United States committed a new cowardly aggression on Iraq,' the statement said. 'The U.S. forces fired cruise missiles on the intelligence headquarters and the surrounding civilian areas in the neighborhoods of Mansour and Maamoun.'
According to the statement, a number of people living in nearby houses were killed, 'many others, including women and children, were wounded and houses were damaged.'
INA quoted witnesses as saying that one of the U.S. missiles crashed on two houses close to the Embassy of Venezuela. None was hurt at the embassy which was vacant at the time but the attack damaged the premises, an INA reporter said.
Eight people in the nearby house received various injuries, he said. A number of houses were completely destroyed and at least 15 cars were damaged, he added.
Salem Humaid Ali said one of the exploding missiles caused a 10-meter crater near his house and that a car was thrown to another house's roof meters away.
INA said Iraqi citizens flocked to the targeted areas, shouting 'Allah Akbar' (God is Great) and 'Death to America, enemy of people.'
'The U.S. Administration should know that all its power and tyranny will not destroy Iraq's will and love to President Saddam Hussein,' said 37-year-old Rashed Ahmed.
A statement of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council denied Washington's accusations that Saddam Hussein regime plotted to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during his visit to Kuwait last April.
'This is a mere and baseless accusation,' INA, in a dispatch monitored in Beirut, quoted the statement as saying. 'It was made up by the U.S. bodies in agreement with their agents in Kuwait.'
The statement described the U.S. cruise missile attack against the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad as an extension of the Gulf War II.
'It is a continuance of the ongoing aggression on Iraq since January 1991 which was planned by the United States and its agents to control and steal the wealth and resources of the region and submit them to the will of imperialist America,' it said.
In a separate dispatch, the Revolutionary Command Council said President Bill Clinton ordered the military strike on Baghdad after having been 'under tremendous psychological pressure exerted by the U. S. media.'
'Those media circles have been inciting the U.S. Administration to renew the aggression on Iraq for months, describing the new U.S. president as a weak person,' the Council said.
'This prompted Clinton to commit a criminal aggression against Iraq to refute being weak,' it said.
The Council also said the U.S. attack was a new test for the United Nations to define its position regarding the U.S. repeated aggressions against the people of the world.
'This cowardly action exposes the state of decadence the world is living under the U.S. control, Somalia being another proof on this,' it added.
