HIGHLIGHTS: Iraqi Kurdish Leader, Jalal Talabani, Denies Offering Military Help to U.S. to Attack Baghdad||U.S. Navy Contracts Ships to Move Military Hardware||Rumsfeld Says Allowing UN Inspectors Back in Iraq Is Not Enough||Oppostion Group Claims Saddam's Son Wounded|| STORY: Aircraft from the U.S.-British coalition patrolling southern Iraq bombed two Iraqi air defense sites Wednesday, the U.S. Central Command said.

The attack with precision-guided weapons at about 5 p.m. EDT was a response to Iraqi actions threatening coalition planes patrolling the southern no-fly zone, a Central Command statement said.
The strike was the latest in a series of incidents in the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. Coalition planes struck an Iraqi military communications facility on Aug. 5.

IRAQ RENEWS INVITAION TO U.S. CONGRESS

Iraq renewed its call for the US Congress to accept its invitation to send a fact-finding team to Baghdad to check for the development of weapons of mass destruction.

"What does the US Congress have to lose if it accepts the invitation from the Iraqi parliament and forms a delegation accompanied by a team of experts to visit the sites where their administration claims that Iraq is hiding or producing weapons of mass destruction?" asked the ruling Baath party daily Ath-Thawra on Wednesday.

Iraq's parliament first extended the offer on August 5. It was instantly snubbed by the White House, but was renewed two days later.

Baghdad's offer coincided with repeated threats by President George W. Bush's administration of a military campaign to oust Saddam Hussein's regime, which it accuses of developing weapons of mass destruction.

A SETBACK TO WASHINGTON

And in a setback for Washington, a prominent Iraqi Kurdish leader denied he had offered the use of military bases controlled by his group for a US attack on Saddam.

Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, told the Arab satellite news channel al-Jazeera the comments he made during a CNN interview on Tuesday were "misinterpreted."

"I was asked about the position of the Kurdish people if US forces were deployed in Iraqi Kurdistan and I replied that the Kurdish people, to whom the United States has offered aerial protection, will favourably welcome the presence of US forces to protect them against foreign intervention and any chemical attack" by Baghdad, Talabani said.

Talabani, one of several Iraqi opposition leaders who met over the weekend with US officials, had told CNN the "American army will be very warmly welcomed in Iraqi Kurdistan."

Most of northern Iraq has been outside Baghdad's control since a Kurdish uprising following the 1991 Gulf War.

U.S. NAVY CONTRACTS SHIPS TO MOVE MILITARY HARDWARE

In Washington, US defense officials said the navy was contracting two commercial ships to move military hardware, including Bradley fighting vehicles and helicopters, to Jordan and an undisclosed Red Sea port.

However, a spokesman for the US Central Command said the shipments were part of a broader "routine" transfer of military equipment from the European theatre to other parts of the globe.

Iraq on Tuesday urged the United States to abandon its hostile policy as Foreign Minister Naji Sabri revealed Baghdad was still working on a response to UN demands for unconditional weapons inspections.

Those demands came after Baghdad invited the chief UN arms inspector, Hans Blix, for talks on the possible resumption of monitoring.

RUMSFELD SAYS ALLOWING INSPECTORS BACK IN IRAQ IS NOT ENOUGH

But US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it would be difficult for inspectors to expose Iraq's hidden weapons programs even if they were let back into the country, as in the past the biggest breaks have come from defectors.

Noting that even Saddam's own son-in-law was executed for disclosures that led UN inspectors to make their biggest discoveries about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons program, Rumsfeld said "an inspection regime would have to be so intrusive, it would have to be any time, any place.

Washington has repeatedly accused Iraq of harbouring terrorists and developing biological and chemical weapons since disarmament inspectors fled on the eve of sustained US air strikes in December 1998.

The Bush administration has called for a change of regime in Iraq "by any means necessary," but also has promised to consult allies and Congress before taking any action.

However, most members of the US-led international coalition in Afghanistan, including European allies and especially those in the Middle East, have voiced serious reservations about US calls to expand the "war against terror" to Iraq

GROUP CLAIMS SADDAM'S SON WOUNDED

Opponents of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein shot and wounded his younger son in an assassination attempt in Baghdad two weeks ago, the Iraqi National Congress opposition group said Wednesday
A spokesman for the London-based group said Saddam's 35-year-old son Qusai was shot in the arm as he drove in a convoy through the elite Mansour district of the Iraqi capital on Aug. 1.
"There was an assassination attempt by a group belonging to the Iraqi patriotic opposition in Baghdad," said the spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He did not identify the group by name.
Saddam's older son, Odai, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in December 1996. He was shot about 10 times while waiting in his car in an upscale district near Baghdad.

PHOTO CAPTION

Sheikh Omar Bakri, British based leader of the Islamic Al-Muhajiroun group, speaks at his London office, Tuesday Oct. 16, 2001. Speaking on BBC radio Bakari warned Wednesday Aug. 14, 2002, that Britain faced the prospect of September 11-style attacks if Britain decides to take part in US-led military action against Iraq. (AP Photo/Alastair Gran