- DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Iraq
said on Thursday there was no point in allowing U.N. weapons inspectors
into the country because an "insane, criminal" U.S. administration
was determined to attack and oust President Saddam Hussein.
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- "What purpose would there be for a goodwill gesture
or an initiative for the return of spies?," Iraqi Vice-President Taha
Yassin Ramadan told reporters in Damascus, where he has been rallying Arab
support for Iraq in its standoff with Washington.
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- Ramadan said the U.S. administration, a senior member
of which said on Wednesday that Saddam must go even if he lets inspectors
in, had already decided to attack Iraq.
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- "The U.S. administration...says day and night that
the issue is not related to whether the inspectors return or not, it has
to do with changing the regime by force. This (inspectors) is an issue
on which we shouldn't waste our time," Ramadan said.
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- "What's new in the U.S. threat? We are taking the
threat seriously. It is a despotic administration, it is an insane, criminal
administration. Its logic in relations with the states of the world is
the logic of force," he said before departing for Beirut.
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- Iraq has not permitted U.N. arms inspectors, whom it
accuses of espionage, back since they left ahead of a U.S.-led bombing
campaign on Iraq in late 1998. The bombing was intended to force more cooperation
with the inspections requirements imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of
Kuwait.
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- As Washington's war rhetoric mounts, Britain has said
it may propose a deadline for Iraq to submit to inspections. Baghdad, meanwhile,
has sought to add a united Arab front to a chorus of warnings against a
U.S. strike on Iraq.
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- ARAB SOLIDARITY
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- Ramadan told reporters in Damascus earlier on Thursday
that Arab governments should reflect the opinions of their citizens, who
believe Saddam's assertions that any U.S. attack on one Arab country was
an attack against them all.
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- "We are confident of the popular Arab position and
have been reassured by it since the beginning of the conflict. We hope
the official position will be the same and translate the popular Arab position,"
he said.
-
- Germany, and Britain's ruling Labor Party, have also
voiced misgivings about any attack, as did U.N. Security Council member
China, which said Iraq should implement U.N. resolutions but that force
was not the answer.
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- Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally that was the launching pad
for the 1991 Gulf War that drove Iraq forces from Kuwait, said any "regime
change" in Iraq was a matter for the Iraqis themselves. Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak said an attack could bring chaos in the Middle East.
-
- Their objections have been more subtle than those of
Syria, once Iraq's bitter foe but now its most vocal advocate against an
attack, which Damascus fears could make it the next target in a plan to
impose U.S.-Israeli hegemony on the region.
-
- Syria, which is already at odds with Washington over
its backing for Hizbollah and militant Palestinian groups, suggested on
Wednesday it was time for the United Nations to re-open dialogue with Baghdad.
-
- It has also flaunted its diplomatic ties with Iraq in
spite of tension with Washington, which deems Syria a state sponsor of
"terrorism" and accuses it pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
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- Ramadan and Syrian Prime Minister Mustafa Mero on Thursday
signed a series of trade, health, environmental and education deals that
marks the resurrection of a diplomatic relationship killed off by Syria's
backing of Iran in its 1980-1988 war with Iraq and the U.S.-led Gulf war
against Baghdad.
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- Britain alleges the cooperation extends to a trade in
Iraqi crude oil that violates sanctions imposed on Iraq after the invasion
of Kuwait, but both countries say oil deals cleave to the U.N. oil-for-food
program that governs Iraqi oil exports.
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