THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, November 4, 1996              TAG: 9611040052
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   51 lines

PILOT WHO FIRED ON IRAQI SITE HAD A FALSE ALERT PENTAGON DEFENDS AIRMAN'S ACTIONS, SAYS A SIGNAL WARNED THAT HE WAS TARGETED.

A U.S. F-16 pilot fired a missile Saturday when he thought he was being targeted by an Iraqi missile site, but no Iraqi radar had tried to lock on to the aircraft, the Pentagon said Sunday.

The Pentagon defended the pilot's action, saying his cockpit instruments had indicated he was being targeted, and under the rules of engagement he was allowed to respond to what he perceived as a hostile act.

``Subsequent analysis did not support the initial indications of radar activity,'' the Pentagon said in a statement. It did not say what damage was done by the missile, noting that it was still being assessed.

Asked how the confusion had occurred, a Pentagon military source said that the pilot did hear an auditory signal indicating the F-16 had been locked onto, but that it apparently was a false reading, later analysis showed. The source spoke on condition of anonymity.

Iraq denied that any incident took place. Its news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying, ``Fabricating this false report is part of American-style electioneering'' - a reference to the U.S. presidential elections Tuesday.

The F-16 returned safely to base in Saudi Arabia after the incident at about 12:30 p.m. local time (4:30 a.m. EST) near the 32nd parallel southeast of Kut Al Hayy, in the ``no-fly'' zone over southern Iraq. The F-16 was assigned to the 4404th wing at Prince Sultan Air Base, south of Riyadh.

The United States and its allies have maintained the ``no-fly'' zone over southern Iraq since the end of the gulf war in 1991.

The missile firing was the first of its kind since Sept. 4, when Iraqi forces confronted U.S. fliers twice as they began their patrols over an expanded no-fly zone for Iraqi aircraft that Washington unilaterally declared the day before.

An Iraqi air defense radar site illuminated an Air Force F-16 with its signal, a potential precursor to firing a surface-to-air missile. The warplane responded by unleashing an anti-radar missile, and the site went silent, Defense Secretary William Perry said at the time.

President Clinton had said the day before that, to reinforce the buffer zone between Iraq and its neighbors, the no-fly zone would be expanded about 60 miles north, to the 33rd parallel. That would take it to the suburbs of Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to shoot down any foreign aircraft.

The confrontations over the no-fly zone followed two strikes by a total of 44 cruise missiles against 15 Iraqi air-defense sites.

The strikes against Iraqi sites were sparked by Saddam's attacks on Kurdish rebels in the north. by CNB