BAGHDAD, September 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S aircraft attacked Sunday, September 29, the international airport at Basra in southern Iraq for the second time in a week, as Iraq condemns U.S. dictatorial language and hysteria whipped up by Washington in an effort to bully the United Nations into backing a war against Iraq.

"The evil American crows have struck and destroyed the civilian radar system at the airport," a transport ministry spokesman told the official satellite television channel.

The raid on Basra took place at 5:40 a.m. (0140 GMT) and "damaged the main service building, including the departure hall," he added.

Iraq said the airport's civilian radar system had already been destroyed in a U.S. raid on Wednesday, September 25. Basra airport had also been bombed in August 2001 by U.S. and British forces, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

Pentagon officials insisted the target on Wednesday was a mobile air defense radar that had been targeting U.S. and British aircraft over the past week.

Britain's defense ministry said the Royal Air Force had taken part in the raid.

A military spokesman said an Iraqi was wounded Thursday, September 26, when civilian and service installations were bombed in Zi-Qar province about 375 kilometers (225 miles) south of Baghdad.

Iraqi anti-aircraft fire forced the aircraft back to Kuwaiti airspace, he added.

The U.S. and British planes also overflew 15 other locations, the spokesman said.

Baghdad reported on August 27 that the radar system at Mosul airport in northern Iraq was destroyed by U.S.-British planes.

Almost daily skirmishes are reported in "no-fly" zones enforced by U.S. and British warplanes over northern and southern Iraq since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

The latest raids come as Washington, backed by Britain, is pressuring the United Nations to give the go-ahead for military action against Baghdad for its alleged continued development of weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, Iraq hit out Sunday at the dictatorial language and hysteria whipped up by Washington in an effort to bully the United Nations into backing a war against Iraq.

"The Bush administration has tried to blackmail the world by making it afraid of Iraq and its so-called weapons of mass destruction, but it has failed," the ruling Baath party's Ath-Thawra newspaper said.

"Now that Iraq has removed the pretext of the weapons it is accused of possessing by allowing back the (UN) inspectors, the Bush administration has started intimidating the world by stepping up its hostile talk and threats," the official daily added.

The United States is "talking to the United Nations and the UN Security Council in peremptory if not dictatorial language," the paper said.

President George W. Bush behaves "as if the Security Council was a government body and as if the representatives of countries on the council were employees of the White House who have to carry out his orders."

"These are signs of hysteria caused by the failure of the Bush administration's domestic and foreign plans, which it is trying to cover up by threatening Iraq," Ath-Thawra said.

The United States, backed by Britain, without any authority from the UN, has prepared a draft resolution giving Iraq just seven days to declare all its weapons of mass destruction programs and 23 additional days to open up fully to UN inspectors or face military strikes.

However China, France and Russia, the three other permanent Security Council members with veto rights, oppose a resolution laying down an automatic recourse to force and want to see the results of the inspections first.

Baghdad warned Saturday that it would reject any new resolution it deems "harmful" and which seeks to overturn an agreement struck with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 1998 for inspections of so-called presidential sites.

Iraq agreed on September 16 to allow weapons inspectors to return "without conditions", following a near four-year break.

Hans Blix, chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), was to open talks in Vienna on Monday, September 30, to sort out the logistics of the resumption of arms checks.

Blix has said he hopes to have an advance party in Iraq on October 15.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri visited Iran to bolster support from the old arch-enemy and Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz is to go to Turkey on Monday.

Iraqi MP Mohammad Muzafar al-Adhmai called in an article in Sunday's official Al-Qadissiya newspaper for an extraordinary Arab summit to look into the U.S. threats against Iraq and "to take the necessary measures to prevent the attack."