Iraq Says US to Launch Attacks Despite Arms Inspections

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, April 25, 2002

Iraq Says US to Launch Attacks Despite Arms Inspections

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Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz has said that the United States will launch military attacks against Iraq even if Iraq allows the United Nations arms inspectors back into the country, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported Thursday.

"Arms inspectors will not prevent the United States from committing a new aggression" because the United States has publicly admitted that its foreign policy aim is to topple the Iraqi regime, Aziz was quoted as saying during a meeting with a European delegation of activists late Wednesday night.

Aziz noted that the United States unleashed military attacks against Iraq during 1991 and 1998 when U.N. arms inspectors were working in the country.

U.N. arms inspectors withdrew out of Iraq on the eve of the U.S. -British air war against Baghdad in December 1998, and have since been barred from re-entering.

U.S. President George W. Bush has warned Iraq to re-admit the arms inspectors or face the possibility of fresh U.S. military onslaught.

"The United States will not be able to convince most of the countries in the world to ally with it to commit a new crime against Iraq," Aziz said, adding that Britain, a staunch U.S. ally, "is also facing public rejection to attack Iraq again."

Rebuffing U.S. claims that Iraq is threatening its neighbors, Aziz said that "Iraq has re-established relations with all neighboring states, such as Iran, Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and there is no one complaining of any Iraqi threats."

To avert any possible U.S. military attacks, Baghdad has made overtures to neighboring and other Arab countries and there has been a marked thaw between Iraq and its neighbors, especially Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

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