Iraq Makes Efforts in Arms Talks to Muffle US War Threats

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, August 03, 2002

Iraq Makes Efforts in Arms Talks to Muffle US War Threats

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Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri has recently sent a letter to UN General Secretary Kofi Annan to invite chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix to visit Baghdad for technical talks that could lead to the resumption of inspections, halted in December 1998.

By expressing its desire to cooperate with the United Nations, Baghdad is making efforts to avert an increasingly speculated US-led war on Iraq.

Sabri said in the letter that Blix, the executive chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), and other UN arms experts were welcomed to come to the country "as soon as possible" to discuss the outstanding disarmament issues "to establish a solid basis for the next stage of monitoring and inspection activities and to move forward to thatstage."

In an interview with the Iraqi Satellite TV Channel, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan also voiced the country's readiness to resume talks with Annan "without any condition" to find ways to implement UN Security Council Resolutions.

Iraq's calls for cooperation with the UN came as the United States are piling up its threats to invade Iraq for a "regime change."

US President George W. Bush has branded Iraq as part of an "axisof evil," along with Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and accused them of pursuing weapons of mass destruction andsupporting terrorism.

He has reiterated his administration's determination to seek a "regime change" in Iraq, saying that "we'll use all tools at our disposal" to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings over the Bush administration's intention tolaunch a new war against Iraq.

Although many lawmakers cautioned that Washington must carefullyweigh the war's human and economic costs, they admitted Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs pose a threat.

Bush's concerns about Iraq's threat are shared by his allies, Britain and Australia. British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned last month that Saddam's weapons program constitutes a "gathering threat" and preemptive measures should be taken to counter it.

In face of growing US saber-rattling, Iraq hopes that its offer to allow the return of UN arms inspectors would result in an increasing worldwide opposition to US-led war on the sanctions-hit country.

Many countries in the world, including UN Security Council permanent members China, Russia and France as well as most Arab andEuropean countries, have voiced their objection to military strikesagainst Iraq while urging Iraq to cooperate with the United Nationsin implementing relevant UN resolutions.

King Abdullah II of Jordan, a key Arab ally of the United States, said in an interview with the Washington Post published Thursday that it would be a "tremendous mistake" for the United States to brush off warnings from its allies against war on Iraq.

However, some observers said a war on Iraq is only "a matter of time" because the weapons inspecting mission could as well fall into crisis and then an excuse for the United States to act.

One of Iraq's claimed reasons to bar UN inspectors out of the country is that some American members in the UN inspection team arespies working for the US government to gather Iraq's national secrets, including the movements of its president.

Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish who led the first UN mission to check Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs in 1991-1997, said lastmonth in an interview with a Swedish radio station that it was "no doubt" the American inspectors wanted to influence the inspections to serve the fundamental US interests.

Continuous spats about alleged espionage activities between Iraqand the UN arms inspectors, who were commissioned to verify that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction, led to crisis in 1997 and 1998 and eventually the air war against Baghdad on Dec.17-19, 1998.

Iraq has since remained defiant, arguing that its weapons of mass destruction -- nuclear, chemical and biological ones -- have already been dismantled and the return of the arms inspectors to Iraq is thus unnecessary.

Now for the first time in nearly four years, Iraq has hinted that UN arms inspectors would be allowed to return as the prospect of another US-led strike is emerging on the horizon.

But the United States has made it clear that it would "go it alone" in its claimed war on terrorism and must act preemptively before the threats are fully developed.

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