A rchive Date
[ 06-01-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2002/12/25/8392-ap.html
Saddam accuses UN inspectors of conducting intelligence work
Mon, January 6, 2003
BAGHDAD (AP) - President Saddam Hussein declared Iraq would prevail if attacked by the United States and that UN inspectors were conducting intelligence work in the guise of searching for weapons.
"We are in our country and the one who is in his country is right and its enemy is wrong. When the enemy comes as an aggressor, the victory will go to the people of right when they are inside their homeland," he said in a taped, televised speech marking Army Day.
"The enemy will be defeated disgracefully .... It has misjudged and misbehaved after abandoning any means of honesty on which good people meet and co-operate."
He also said the UN inspectors currently in Iraq were interested in collecting names of Iraqi scientists and gathering information about military facilities, leading him to believe they were involved in intelligence work.
"They turned out to be interested in ... all or mostly purely intelligence work," he said.
Saddam did not say whether his suspicions about the inspectors would lead Iraq to stop co-operating with them. Other Iraqi officials have expressed concerns about the manner in which the inspectors were carrying out their work, but said Iraq would continue to co-operate to prove it has no banned weapons and to avoid war.
In 1998, a previous UN monitoring regime collapsed amid disputes between Iraq and the United Nations over alleged U.S. spying from within the UN operation and inspectors' access to sensitive sites.
The ulterior motive of the U.S. "is to subject the Arab Gulf area to a full, complete and physical occupation through which to achieve many goals," Saddam said.
He also said he knew his military would stand by its oath to protect the country - perhaps an answer to some military experts outside the country who have theorized the Iraqi army could collapse if attacked by a far stronger U.S. force.
The Iraqi army collapsed quickly under the onslaught of a U.S.-led coalition during the 1991 Persian Gulf War that forced Saddam to retreat from Kuwait.
"We are confident, depending on the Almighty, that you will be, with the beginning of every new day, better till you reach the best situation, in defiance of the disappointed enemy, the friends and helpers of Satan, night and darkness," Saddam said.
The Iraqi leader also sought to appeal to other Arabs by raising the Palestinian question, saying the United States was trying to divert attention from "the crimes committed by the Zionist entity (Israel) against our people in Palestine."
The speech follows repeated threats by U.S. President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials to attack Iraq and topple Saddam's regime if it does not eliminate all weapons of mass destruction as required by UN resolutions adopted after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Under a Security Council resolution passed in November, a new program of weapons inspection has begun to establish whether Iraq still has chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or the means to deliver them. Iraq has denied it has such weapons, but the United States and Britain have accused it of hiding banned arms.
In his speech, Saddam accused the United States of trying to push the UN arms inspectors to go beyond their duties outlined even in "the bad resolutions of the Security Council," specifically mentioning U.S. efforts to persuade the inspection teams to be more aggressive about questioning Iraqi scientists about the country's arms programs.
"Instead of searching for what are called weapons of mass destruction, they are busy with collecting the lists containing the names of the Iraqi scientists (and) posing silly, meaningless questions to them," Saddam said.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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