A rchive Date
[ 01-01-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2002/12/25/8392-ap.html
Iraq warns of heavy U.S. losses if attacked
Says Iraqis ready for martyrdom
Tue, December 31, 2002
BAGHDAD (AP) - UN arms inspectors fanned out Tuesday to six sites to check if they are involved in the making of banned weapons as an Iraqi cabinet minister warned the United States of "the heaviest losses" if it invades.
The Iraqi newspaper al-Thawra quoted Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh as saying Iraq was ready for war and that the country "will fight much harder than it did in the 1991." Saleh said a three-month food ration had been given to Iraqis as a precaution in case war broke out.
"When we fight in the streets, in cities and villages, food will be available and guns will be available," the minister said. "We will inflict the heaviest losses on them and they will be repelled from our country if they dare to attack us."
Such rhetoric is common in Iraq, whose badly outgunned forces failed to offer significant resistance to the U.S.-led coalition that threw it out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.
Also Tuesday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he did not yet see any justification for a military strike against Iraq since Baghdad has not hampered the work of the inspectors.
The United States should wait for a report from the inspectors before launching any offensive, he added.
"Obviously they are carrying out their work and, in the meantime, Iraq is co-operating and they are able to do their work in an unimpeded manner," Annan told Israel's Army Radio in an interview.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on the weekend that the United States has yet to decide whether to attack Iraq.
"The president has not made a decision yet with respect to the use of military force or with respect to going back to the United Nations," Powell said. "And of course, we are positioning ourselves and positioning our military forces for whatever might be required."
Although it has yet to provide evidence, the United States contends Iraq is stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and says it will use force if necessary to disarm Iraq if the Arab country does not fully co-operate with the inspectors.
If Iraq can convince inspectors that has no such weapons or the capability to manufacture them, it may be able to avoid the threatened U.S. military strike and eventually see the lifting of economic sanctions that were imposed after its invasion of neighbouring Kuwait in 1990.
Baghdad has invited chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to Baghdad to "review the aspects of co-operation between us during the past period and the prospective to enhance such co-operation in the coming months," according to the text of a letter sent by Amir al-Saadi, Iraq's liaison to the inspectors.
The letter, whose text was released by Iraq's official news agency, was handed to Blix by Mohammed Salman, deputy head of Iraq's UN mission.
In another development, the Washington Times claimed Tuesday that Iraq was hiding two weapons scientists in Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces, allegedly to shield them from questioning by UN weapons inspectors.
The officials did not name the scientists, but said that one was believed to be involved in Iraq's covert nuclear arms program and the second was a chemical and biological weapons specialist, the newspaper reported.
The newspaper also reported claims by the unnamed officials that there were signs chemical and biological weapons materials had recently been moved to underground storage facilities unknown to the inspectors. It was not known if U.S. officials were going to pinpoint these facilities for the inspectors.
Al-Thawra, meanwhile, accused Washington of applying double standards.
"If we compare what North Korea has done . . . to the Iraqi issue, we will find that they are contrary to each other because Iraq has agreed since 1991 to get rid of its weapons," said the newspaper.
"But look how America is dealing with both cases and how it is threatening Iraq . . . with invasion and occupation."
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Aziz met a delegation of U.S. religious leaders and later told reporters he wished that such people were the ones who made U.S. policy.
"It's not in their hands," Aziz said. "The situation is still in the hands of the warmongers. We hope that they will listen to the voice of peace."
He said visits by such delegations gave the outside world a better picture of life in Iraq. "Whenever there is a delegation from the United States or Europe, we benefit from it," he said.
A team of 13 U.S. religious leaders and experts are on a four-day visit to Iraq that's to include tours of schools and hospitals and meetings with Iraqi Christians. The delegation is led by Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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