HIGHLIGHTS:Americans Describe Attack as 'an act of self defense'||Annan Rejects New Talks with Iraq||Saddam plans Mid-October Referendum|| STORY: U.S.-led airstrikes in southern Iraq early Tuesday killed an Iraqi civilian and injured 22 others, an Iraqi military spokesman said.

U.S. and British warplanes attacked "residential areas" in the al-Qadissiya and Wasit provinces, the unidentified spokesman was quoted as telling the official Iraqi News Agency. Iraq's air defenses drove the planes away, he said.

In the United States, the U.S. Central Command said American warplanes had bombed a military communications site in southern Iraq after Iraqi air defense forces used radar and surface-to-air guns against U.S. and British planes that patrol the skies over southern Iraq.

That attack and one other last Thursday against the same communications target were acts of self defense, the U.S. Central Command said.

American officials said the site was near Diwaniyah, about 80 miles southeast of Baghdad.

ANNAN REJECTS NEW TALKS WITH IRAQ WITHOUT PROGRESS

In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told U.N. Security Council members and a television interviewer on Tuesday he did not intend to hold further talks with Iraq until Baghdad showed some willingness to allow U.N. arms inspectors back into the country.

Some council diplomats at the monthly luncheon with the secretary-general reported that Annan, however, stressed that the channel for a dialogue should not be closed following the third round of unsuccessful talks with Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri in Vienna on July 5-6.

The United States believes that three rounds of talks with no progress were sufficient but other envoys hoped the discussions would continue, if for no other reason than to ward off any possible U.S. attack.

The inspectors left Iraq in December 1998, the eve of a U.S.-British bombing campaign to punish Baghdad for not cooperating with the arms experts. Accounting for Iraq's dangerous weapons is key to suspending U.N. sanctions, imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

SADDAM PLANS MID-OCTOBER REFERENDUM

In Baghdad, Iraq's Saddam Hussein is planning to hold a referendum to endorse his presidency in mid-October, the country's newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Politicians and analysts in Baghdad see the referendum as a routine procedure to endorse Saddam for a new seven-year term.
The plan for the vote coincides with increased rumblings from the United States about the need for a "change of regime" in Iraq, which holds the second largest oil reserves in the world behind Saudi Arabia.

PHOTO CAPTION

A visibly angry Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called on Pentagon workers July 22, 2002 to help catch and jail a defense official who leaked an alleged U.S. plan to invade Iraq to The New York Times. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
- Jul 23 8:04 AM