-Caveat Lector- http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2002-10/13/article19.shtml
U.S. Spurns New Iraqi Invitation to U.N. Arms Inspectors "Our president to be our dearest," Iraqi Women chant WASHINGTON, October 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The U.S. dismissed as "world play" Iraq's new offer to allow U.N. weapons inspectors unconditional access to its facilities. In a letter sent Saturday October 12, to chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iraq clarified its agreement on the return of U.N. inspectors after they pulled out of the country four years ago, said Agence France-Presse (AFP) . Commenting on the letter, State Department spokeswoman Jo-Anne Prokopowicz claimed "Iraq continues to want to play word games and not comply" with U.N. resolutions." Iraq had written an earlier letter dated Friday October 10 to the U.N. which had been construed as evasive and criticized by the U.S. administration. Washington dismissed the October 10 letter as "a page-and-a-half of rhetoric that says everything but 'yes'". IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told AFP the Saturday letter, the second in two days, from Iraqi presidential adviser Amir El-Sadi, head of the Iraqi delegation to weapons talks in Vienna on October 1, was an "explicit confirmation" that Iraq agreed to arrangements made in Vienna. "The letter is new but my understanding is that the content of the letter isn't new, it's merely meant to set the record straight," he added. "It is meant to try to dispel any misinterpretation that the previous letter might have led to and basically to make it clear that the arrangements and the agreements reached in Vienna were now formally agreed in writing," Gwozdecky said. But he did not believe the letter would affect plans to delay the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq until a new U.N. Security Council resolution has been passed. "The Iraqis believe that what they did in Vienna was remove all obstacles" to the return of weapons inspectors. They "did remove some obstacles, but one exception was this question of presidential palaces," he said. One of the main areas of contention is the inspection of President Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces. But Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said in Hamburg Saturday October 12 that inspectors would have unfettered access to all areas of Iraq. Malaysia on Sunday October 13, urged the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to call an emergency meeting in a bid to avert a U.S.-led war against Iraq. The OIC needed to speak with one voice on Washington's threat to invade Iraq and topple the regime of President Saddam, Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told the official Bernama news agency. "I will send the letter [calling for an emergency meeting] to the OIC secretary-general tomorrow. "We must come out with one voice and our actions must be integrated," Syed Hamid said. "This is the time for all OIC member states to issue clear statements on their respective stands and initiate diplomatic efforts and negotiations to avert a war on Iraq." Syed Hamid said he feared an attack on Iraq would "arouse anger and feelings of marginalization among Muslims and even moderate Muslims will eventually be influenced and become extreme because their moderation was not reciprocated." Malaysia, a mainly Muslim Southeast Asian nation which has supported the U.S. war on terrorism, is due to take over the chairmanship of the OIC after a summit here in October next year. In a show of popular solidarity with him, Naam, naam, Saddam," "Yes, yes, Saddam," echoes across the parade ground outside the Iraqi ruling Baath Party headquarters in a northern Baghdad suburb. "We don't want bread and water, we want our president to be our dearest," chanted a group of Iraqi women. "Bush, Bush listen here, we all love Saddam," said a middle-aged man in a well-worn safari suit to thunderous applause. A referendum is to be held Tuesday October 15 on a new seven-year presidential term for Saddam. Meanwhile, the U.S. is reportedly mulling what shape the government in a post-Saddam Iraq might take, including some form of military occupation government. Secretary of State Colin Powell confirming press reports on the plans, told National Public Radio Saturday October 12, "Should it come to that -- and the president hopes that it does not...we would have an obligation to put in place a better regime." "We are obviously doing contingency planning, and there are lots of different models from history that one could look at: Japan, Germany," Powell said. The New York Times and The Washington Post jump-started questions about the issue, reporting Friday October 11, that the U.S. administration was preparing an occupation plan for Iraq, calling for a U.S.-led military government before a civilian Iraqi government could take over. The plan includes a transition to an elected civilian government in Iraq that could take months or years, unnamed senior administration officials. It would put a U.S. military commander in charge of Iraq, perhaps Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. forces in the Gulf, for a year or more while the U.S. and its allies searched for and destroyed alleged weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is neither Afghanistan nor post-war Japan, and the United States will not find it easy to name a "governor" in Baghdad, pundits have warned. "They [Americans] may be able to do it on paper, but not on the ground," Mohammad Mesfer, a political science professor at Doha University in Qatar, told AFP. Americans are out of touch with "the social, tribal and religious realities of Iraq, whose Kurds, Turkomen, Shiites and Sunnis don't agree among each other," said Mesfer, who has met Saddam twice in recent months. "The Iraqis would resist any foreign power," he added. "It would be wrong to believe that Iraq is Afghanistan or Kuwait," where some 10,000 U.S. troops are stationed, said French academic and Middle East expert Gilles Kepel. He said naming "an American governor in Iraq" would be more complex than it may seem. "The United States has the firepower to overthrow a hostile regime. The problem is what comes after," he said. "There is a genuine civil society in Iraq, people who hold the United States largely responsible for the ordeal they have been through over the past few years," Kepel said. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. 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