Kuwait Times February 5, 2003
Blair Fails To Persuade France...'Monitors Must Complete Hunt' Last-Ditch Arab-EU Mission *Powell Set To Expose 'Lies' *Saddam Rejects Qaeda Links
BEIRUT: An Arab-European delegation may be sent to Baghdad on a last-ditch mission to convince Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to cooperate with the United Nations so a war can be avoided, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou said yesterday.
Arab leaders, who fear a US-led war on Iraq could lead to regional instability, have said they want a final chance to avert war if US President George W. Bush decides to use force. Efforts until now apparently have yielded little, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said it isn't clear whether Saddam comprehends the urgency of accepting Arabs' advice that he fully cooperates.
At the end of an EU-backed mission that also took Papandreou to Syria and Jordan, the Greek foreign minister held out the possibility of a joint Arab-EU delegation to Baghdad.
"We have talked about this possibility," he said without elaboration. "The mood in Europe is also for a last effort." Papandreou noted that Arab foreign ministers were expected to meet in mid-February followed by a full summit of leaders at the end of February or the beginning of March. "Of course, one doesn't know what the developments would have been by then," he said. Asked in Cairo, Egypt, about the prospect of a joint EU-Arab delegation visiting Baghdad, Arab League spokesman Hisham Youssef would say only: "When the Arab foreign ministers meet, they will discuss all options and efforts which might help to avert war." Papandreou, whose country holds the current EU presidency, said "the Arab world is ready to play an instrumental role" in persuading Saddam to cooperate, and is willing to send envoys to Iraq.
He said leaders he spoke with on his tour "discussed their fear of what war would mean in the region, but they are also ready to mobilize the Arab world for a last attempt" to avert a conflict.
Papandreou said he was heading next to the United Nations "to see how we can move forward in a way to give peace a last chance." He said he would return to the region later to meet with Egyptian and Saudi leaders.
Back in Greece, Premier Costas Simitis renewed calls for an emergency EU summit on Iraq, speaking by telephone with the prime ministers of Britain, Italy, Portugal and Sweden, a spokesman said.
"The issue of an emergency summit will be assessed on the basis of decisions taken by the United Nations Security Council (on Wednesday)," government spokesman Christos Protopapas said.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell was expected to brief the Security Council today on evidence the United States says it has showing Iraq has disregarded its obligations to dismantle its banned weapons programmes.
Papandreou said there is a chance for a diplomatic solution "if Saddam Hussein understands the reality that he must comply and he must fully cooperate" with the United Nations.
Responding to a question about whether Saddam has got the message, he replied: "Some say that he is not receiving the messages, some are saying he is isolated, others think he can survive a war, others that he is playing a waiting game." "This is the crucial nature of getting the Arab world to send the message," he stressed. Arabs, he explained, "can in a very credible way get this message personally to him." In Jordan, visiting Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio also said war could be avoided, "but the key of the crisis is in Saddam's hands." "War is a catastrophe to the international community. ...We will pursue our efforts to the end in order to avoid war," Palacio, who also was heading to the United Nations in New York, said after talks with her Jordanian counterpart Marwan Muasher.
Palacio also met with Jordan's King Abdallah, who later arrived in Saudi Arabia for talks that Muasher said would focus on diplomatic efforts to defuse the tension over Iraq.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, bidding for UN support, is set to present evidence that Iraq has hidden large caches of weapons of mass destruction from international inspectors and defied calls on it to disarm. Powell's public presentation today to the UN Security Council in New York will be the centrepiece of a strenuous campaign to enlist support from Russia, France and other sceptical governments as well as from the American public.
BLAIR FAILS British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been supportive of the administration on Iraq, has failed in a fresh attempt to persuade a reluctant France to join a US-led coalition ready to move against President Saddam Hussein if necessary.
President Jacques Chirac, during talks with Blair in France yesterday, said he is still adamantly opposed to a war against Baghdad without giving UN weapons inspectors more time to search for outlawed weapons.
France and Russia, both of whom have veto power in the Security Council, are prime targets for Powell, who said in an article published Monday by The Wall Street Journal that "we will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction." Bush talked by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin for about 15 minutes yesterday, before leaving to lead a memorial service at the Johnson Space Center in Texas for the seven astronauts who perished last Saturday. Powell also planned a series of meetings with foreign ministers and ambassadors from all 14 other Security Council nations yesterday and today. And all 14, plus Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri, are due to make statements today to the council in what could be a critical test of sentiment for using force to disarm Iraq. CIA Director George J. Tenet, and his chief deputy, John McLaughlin, were expected to accompany Powell at the United Nations but not provide any testimony, US officials said.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday that Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programmes "will be well documented tomorrow by Secretary Powell." He said that while "I don't want to overstate it, for the obvious reason," Powell would also show "some intersections with various and sundry terrorist groups and that is our real fear with Iraq." Meanwhile, the king of Bahrain, in Washington for meetings with the administration leaders, said yesterday he believes Bush wants peace in the region. Bahrain, an island in the Arabian Gulf, is a key US supporter in the region and is home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet.
"The president's goals are for peace in our region, and peace means progress and development," King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifaf said after meeting at the Pentagon with Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Hamad said it was "for the world to decide" if military action should be taken if Iraq fails to comply with UN weapons inspections. He would not say whether he would allow US forces to use Bahrain as a base for an invasion of Iraq without UN approval.
Hamad also called on Saddam to cooperate with the UN "For the sake of peace, we urge Iraq to comply with the international inspectors, so the people of the region can avoid another war," Hamad said.
Yesterday in Iraq, arms monitors fanned out to 10 missile, chemical and other potential weapons production sites as US diplomatic pressure mounted to possibly cut short the UN inspection plans.
A senior Iraqi official said Baghdad, looking to clear away obstacles to a clean UN report on inspections, may consider enlisting foreigners as witnesses for Iraqi weapons scientists who refuse to submit to secret UN interviews - an option proposed by members of the European Parliament. Inspectors have complained about interviews monitored by Iraqi officials.
Powell is expected to present photographs of mobile biological weapons labs and transcripts of overheard Iraqi conversations to try to persuade the other nations that diplomacy and searches have about run their course, an administration official said Monday.
SADDAM DENIAL Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has denied links between his regime and Al-Qaeda in an interview with veteran British left-winger Tony Benn to be broadcast later yesterday.
"We have no relationship with Al-Qaeda," the terror network led by Osama bin Laden, Saddam said in the rare interview, to be screened at 7 pm (1900 GMT) by Britain's independent Channel 4 television network.
"If we had a relationship with Al-Qaeda and we believed in that relationship, we wouldn't be ashamed to admit it," Saddam said, according to an interview excerpt released in advance of screening.
Saddam also insisted that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction, and accused Britain and the United States of being intent on war because of their desire to control oil in the Middle East.
The interview-recorded on Sunday at Saddam's presidential palace in Baghdad - was being aired a day before US Secretary of State Colin Powell presents fresh evidence against Iraq to the UN Security Council today.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair declined immediate comment, apart from saying: "It is for Channel 4 to judge whether any interview carried by them accords to journalistic standards." The British government has alleged, without elaborating, that "links" exist between Al-Qaeda and individuals inside Iraq, which stands accused of refusing to comply with UN demands to give up chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Benn, a former British cabinet minister and Labour Party lawmaker, now a leading anti-war campaigner, denied he was being used by the Iraqi government, adding that he paid his own flight and hotel bill for his stay in Iraq.
The interview was secured from Arab Television (ATV), the British-based production company which filmed it.
Channel 4 defended its decision to broadcast Saddam's comments.
"Even the voice of a man anathema to people of the West must be heard as part of the raging debate over whether we should go to war," said Dorothy Byrne, head of news and current affairs at Channel 4.
A staunch pacifist, Benn, 77, met Saddam in 1990 to try to prevent the escalation of the crisis following the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
Benn spoke on Sunday with Saddam for two hours, during a meeting that was video-taped by an Iraqi television crew with Arabic- and English-speaking interpreters on hand.
Benn said in Baghdad afterwards that Saddam remained "optimistic" about avoiding a US-led war against Iraq.
Speaking to reporters after returning to London's Heathrow airport Monday, Benn described the tone of his discussions with Saddam as "very serious," and said that they covered Iraq's alleged failure to cooperate with 12 years' worth of UN resolutions to disarm.
Benn alleged that the crisis was driven by a US thirst for oil. "If I believe for one moment it really was about weapons of mass destruction, I would take a different view," he said.
On the mood inside Iraq, Benn said: "I have never seen a country which is less aggressive in its stance in private conversation." CHEMICAL WARHEAD UN arms inspectors found an empty chemical warhead at a military depot near Baghdad yesterday, a day before the United States reveals evidence it says proves Iraq is hiding banned weapons.
Hiro Ueki, spokesman for the UN inspection teams, said the warhead was of the same type as 12 undeclared empty warheads found at another location last month.
"An empty Sakr-18 chemical warhead was found at the Al Taji Ammunition Depot. The warhead was tagged and secured," Ueki said. "This is the same type of chemical warhead as was found at the Ukhaider Ammunition Storage area on January 16." Shortly after the January 16 find, Iraq said it had found four more such warheads at Taji and handed them over to the inspectors.
Chief UN inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council in a report on January 27 that Iraq should have declared the warheads and said the find could be the "tip of an iceberg". Iraq said the incident was a simple oversight.
On Monday, inspectors found a missile mould and the warhead of a 70-km (45-mile) range missile. Iraq said the find was insignificant.
Ueki said missile experts from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) inspected Al Rafah test stand, involved in the static testing of missile engines, 130 km (75 miles) southwest of Baghdad.
Other missile teams visited Al-Harith missile maintenance workshop north of Baghdad and the Al-Mamoun factory of the Al-Rasheed State Company, 60 km (38 miles) south of Baghdad.
UNMOVIC chemical teams visited two sites - the water purification station in Doura on the outskirts of Baghdad and an agricultural supply company in Waziriya in Baghdad.
A biological team called at the State Establishment for Heavy Engineering Enterprises plant on the outskirts of Baghdad.
The facility designs and manufactures a range of equipment, including large storage and mixing tanks used by the food processing, chemicals and petroleum industries.
UNMOVIC multi-disciplinary teams inspected a farm, a helicopter support facility and Al Taji depot. A team based in northern Iraq inspected the Mosul Sugar and Yeast Factories, 375 km (230 miles) north of Baghdad.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visited a military compound near the capital and the Al-Salam compound, formerly associated with biological weapons development, in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has pledged to provide "compelling proof" that Iraq is hiding banned weapons from arms inspectors in violation of UN demands, at a presentation to the Security Council on Wednesday.
US officials say he will use satellite photos and intercepted conversations among Iraqi officials to make his case.
Baghdad said it would ask UN weapons inspectors to check Powell's evidence. "Powell will say nothing but lies in front of the Security Council," wrote the official Al-Iraq newspaper.
SAUDI-JORDAN TALKS Saudi Crown Price Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and King Abdallah of Jordan here yesterday held talks on measures to avert a US-led war on Iraq, a Jordanian diplomatic source said.
The two men discussed "the effects on Jordan of a war against Iraq, notably concerning its impact on supplies of oil to Jordan," which depends on its eastern neighbour for its fuel needs, the source added.
It was the Jordanian monarch's second visit to Saudi Arabia in a month and came as the United States intensified threats to attack Iraq to strip it of the weapons of mass destruction it said Baghdad is hiding.
King Abdullah has repeatedly warned that war in Iraq would impose great hardship on the countries of the Middle East but recently acknowledged that it might be too late to secure a diplomatic understanding between Iraq and the United States.
The specialised publication Petrole et Gaz Arabes (Arab Oil and Gas) in its latest edition said Jordan, fearing acute oil shortages in the event of an attack on Iraq was taking steps to double its stocks in order to cover two months' worth of consumption.
Amman last December renewed an oil accord with Baghdad for this year, under which Jordan would receive 5.5 million tonnes of Iraqi crude oil and petroleum products. Half would be provided free and half at preferential prices.
An interruption in the flow of oil would widen the Jordanian budget deficit by an additional 700 million dollars, according to Jordanian estimates.
Jordan's Energy Minister Mohamed Al-Batayneh recently estimated that the country's annual energy bill would come to one billion dollars if it were forced to do without Iraqi oil.
A pipeline connecting the oil fields of eastern Saudi Arabia with Jordan, Syrian and Lebanon has been out of use since 1990, when deliveries ceased following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
At the time, Riyadh defended the closure by saying Jordan had fallen behind on its payments. But Saudi and other Gulf Arab countries also accused Jordan of siding with Iraq after the ill-fated invasion.
IRAQI SUPPORT More than 50,000 Iraqis, many wielding Kalashnikov rifles and rocket launchers, hurled defiance at the United States and vowed to die defending Saddam Hussein during a spirited parade in this northern Iraqi city yesterday.
Men and women volunteers in the "army of Al-Quds (Jerusalem)," joined by militants from the ruling Baath party, marched briskly past President Saddam's second-in-command Ezzat Ibrahim during a two-hour display of resistance and patriotism.
The Al-Quds army was formed by Saddam in 2000 with the purpose of "liberating Palestine" from Israeli occupation and according to Baghdad now numbers six million adherents, but it has yet to see action.
Marchers carried banners with the words "Lift up your head, you're Iraqi" and "We are at your command, Saddam" and shouted "Long Live Saddam, Long Live the President." The rally in Mosul, staged beneath the imposing remains of ancient Assyrian fortifications, was a fresh outburst of Iraqi popular defiance in the face of a huge buildup of US military firepower in the Gulf.
The United States, backed by Britain, has threatened an air and military assault on Iraq unless it agrees to rid itself of the weapons of mass destruction that Washington says Saddam is concealing.
Women carrying assault rifles opened the parade yesterday, striding past the main tribune wearing helmets over their black veils and dressed in green vests, black skirts and high-heel shoes.
"We want to tell the world that we are ready to confront the invaders and die for our country. This is a show of popular support for the armed forces," one heavily made-up woman declared.
A group of Muslim and Christian religious leaders from the northern region of Nineveh held hands and shouted: "With our blood, with our soul, we shall redeem you, Saddam." "Christian and Muslim leaders in Nineveh stand united to confront the threats of the Americans and the Zionists," read their banner.
The procession included peasants, workers, teachers, students, tribal leaders in checkered Arab headdress and Kurdish groups in their traditional baggy pants with large belts.
Women watching the parade from a nearby stand ululated at the passage of "living martyrs," men wearing white cloths on their faces and plastic belts of explosives.
"We shall be martyrs for you Saddam," read a sign on their chests.
Baath party youths who declared themselves "volunteers for Palestine, for the Arab cause" vowed to "kick out the occupiers" in chants aimed at Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
With much of the world unconvinced that military action is necessary against Baghdad, US Secretary of State Colin Powell was meanwhile preparing to go before the UN Security Council today with what he says will be hard evidence that Iraq is hiding biological and chemical weapons.
EMERGENCY SUMMIT Arab leaders are planning an emergency summit on Iraq at the beginning of next month in Cairo where the 22-member Arab League is headquartered, but it may be too late to stop a US-led war.
The venue has been switched from Manama to make it easier to bring the meeting forward from its scheduled date of March 24, the Bahraini authorities confirmed yesterday.
Arab heads of state are now expected to gather in the Egyptian capital on March 1 or 2 under Bahraini chairmanship, diplomats said in Bahrain.
"It is absolutely necessary that the Arab summit be held, and it does not matter where, because of the importance of a joint Arab response to the serious situation facing the region," League Secretary General Amr Moussa told the Cairo daily Al-Akhbar.
Yesterday, Moussa expressed his "extreme pessimism" about the chances of avoiding a war, even though he put its likely costs at "tens of billions of dollars".
"The spectre of war is hovering over the Arab world and threatening one of its main pillars," the League chief said in reference to Iraq.
He said he was "astonished by Western talk of bringing change to the region through war and destruction," saying it showed the Arab world "faced unprecedented challenges in the security, political, economic, social and moral fields".
Arab foreign ministers are to hold an emergency meeting in the Egyptian capital on February 16, amid the mounting realisation that US-led war plans threaten to overtake them.
A consultative meeting is to be held the previous day to finalize plans for the rescheduled summit.
But despite prolonged reluctance to openly back US military action, many pro-Western Arab states have already moved closer to Washington in recent days, despite their fears of the economic costs of any conflict.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month, King Abdullah II, for long a doomsayer on the political and economic consequences of overthrowing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, announced that he now regarded war as virtually inevitable.
"It's too late for a diplomatic solution," the pro-Western monarch announced. "It will be very difficult to find dialogue, a peaceful solution to the crisis." Egypt too has tempered its opposition to regime change in Baghdad, albeit through state-run newspapers rather than directly through its leaders.
Last Friday, the editor of the leading Cairo daily Al-Ahram published a signed editorial openly castigating the Iraqi strongman for bringing war upon himself.
"At a time when the main Arab states are deploying enormous efforts to find a peaceful settlement ... the Iraqi regime comes up with bombastic statements that obstruct them and give the camp of war in the United States new justification to wage war," editor Ibrahim Nafie, a close confidant of President Hosni Mubarak, complained.
The shift in position has not escaped Iraqi analysts. Yesterday, the influential Baghdad daily Babel, run by Saddam's elder son Uday, deplored the spinelessness of Arab governments.
The paper complained that Arab countries merely "express their 'concern' or 'fear' and other escapist phrases, while European and American figures courageously condemn (US President George W.) Bush's fury and the belligerent folly of his administration." In the run-up to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Arab heads of state gathered in Baghdad for a last-ditch summit, but they failed to remedy the mounting estrangement between the neighbours that plunged the region into conflict.
HARDWARE TRANSPORT Galaxy, Globemaster and Hercules transports are now flying night and day over the Gulf, ferrying their share of a mountain of equipment the United States must put in place before it is fully ready for war with Iraq.
In Qatar, most land or take off from two hub bases after dark, but there is nothing covert as they roar over Doha city. If, as some reports suggest, President George W. Bush is considering giving Iraq six more weeks to comply with United Nations demands, it is not simply diplomatic calculation or patience: his military needs that extra time to deploy.
"Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics," goes an old military adage. It applies to the likely timing of a US assault today as much as it did in the 1990-91 Gulf War.
Once strategists determine the war's aim and generals set the size and shape of the force needed to accomplish it, the logistics commands must get all the pieces to the war theatre.
The decision to use it will be for Bush to make, either with or without further UN support.
But forces cannot arrive one day and fight the next. They must acclimatise, test guns and get used to the terrain. Three weeks in the war zone before action is a rule of thumb.
Just over half the minimum force-estimated by analysts to be at least 150,000 -- has arrived in the Gulf region.
There are also an estimated 450 US aircraft of all sorts on hand, suggesting an aerial campaign might begin at any time. But it cannot be launched in isolation.
War plans also require specific aircraft in specific roles and precise numbers for an orchestrated campaign that can be sustained.
Analysts expect F-117A stealth bombers, along with sea-launched and air-launched cruise missiles, would kick off the US air campaign ahead of a land invasion.
So far, none of the stealths of the USAF 49th Tactical Air Wing are in the Gulf, according to GlobalSecurity.Org, the leading independent US military Web site.
"The United States is no doubt trying hard to prevent the public and Iraq from determining just how many forces are involved," it cautions. Its best estimate of the total number of troops in the region as of Tuesday was around 85,000.
Of this, 25,000 are army and the rest air force, marines, aviators and Navy crew aboard three aircraft carrier battle groups, an amphibious assault group and support vessels.
Seven US amphibious assault ships with thousands of marines sailed through Suez on Tuesday into the Red Sea.
Some heavy equipment has not been loaded onto ships yet for the three-week voyage from US ports to the Gulf. Three roll-on, roll-off ships have just left Texas. A further 13 would not be likely to unload at Gulf ports before March 1.
The timing persuades analysts it may be mid-March before land forces would be ready, whatever happens with diplomacy.
GlobalSecurity says 95,000 US troops have been ordered to the region with 48,000 more on alert to do so. Britain's promised 26,000 armoured and air assault troops have not left Europe. Turkey has yet to authorise a major US presence.
Britain on Tuesday said it would begin loading tanks from Germany onto 20 to 30 ships this week, indicating they would not be ready for action before mid-March. The delay was because "ships weren't in place in time", said a British Army spokesman.
But moving a force of 200,000 is a mammoth task and things inevitably go wrong.
In their Gulf War history "The Generals' War", Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor said deployment of US forces was delayed by political factors but also by chronic lack of attention to logistics, the "plain Jane" of the military family.
Shortage of trucks to carry tanks to German ports, Pentagon red tape and bad luck held things up.
In his Gulf War history "Crusade", Rick Atkinson says "brute force logistics" got VII Corps from Germany to Saudi Arabia on 465 trains, 312 barges, 578 aeroplanes and 140 ships.
Moving two other corps secretly west along the Saudi front for the "left hook" flank attack which took Iraqi forces by surprise involved 235,000 troops in 95,000 vehicles.
Trucks and tanks rolled along one highway at intervals of about three seconds, 24 hours a day, according to one report.
The 1991 goal was to deploy a force fast enough yet heavy enough to deter an Iraqi move on Saudi Arabia from occupied Kuwait. Today, with no such threat, the time running out is political. The desert's winter cool also runs out, in April.
In 1990, to the frustration of the generals, Washington held off unmooring ships that held weapons and stores for 17,000 men until the Saudis agreed to the use of force.
Vehicles arrived with flat batteries and the wrong oil for desert temperatures. Some Navy freighters were unseaworthy, and getting the right parts to the right machines was a nightmare.
"On average, a combat battalion's equipment was stowed on seven vessels that reached Saudi Arabian ports over a period of 26 days," said a study cited by Gordon and Trainor. "In its single-minded pursuit of high-tech weaponry," the authors concluded, "the military ignored some unglamorous but essential areas." How they are doing on logistics this time will, as in 1991, not become clear until after the event. - Agencies
Copyright © 2003, Kuwait Times
