Bombs target Iraqi base

WASHINGTON -- Allied aircraft struck Iraq for the third time in a week, bombing a military facility southeast of Baghdad Monday morning, defense officials said.\nThe attack came after Iraqi forces fired on one of the U.S.-British patrols in the no-fly zone, and it followed bombings on Thursday and Saturday, Pentagon officials said.\nIt brought to 37 the number of strikes reported this year by the United States and the United Kingdom coalition put together to patrol zones in the north and south of Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War.\n"There is a price to pay when you attack U.S. and British planes," said Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.\nIn Baghdad, the official Iraqi News Agency quoted an unidentified military spokesman as saying, "American and British evil warplanes violated our skies on Monday coming from Kuwait to bomb civil and service installations." The spokesman gave no further details.\nIn Monday's strike, coalition aircraft used precision-guided weapons to hit an air defense command and control facility near Al Amarah, about 170 miles southeast of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. Central Command said. The command called it "a self-defense measure in response to Iraqi hostile threats and acts against coalition forces and their aircraft"