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PT 2/2, Saudi Arabia, Egypt: Overthrow Saddam

Iraq News, 13 Jan 1999

The central focus of Iraq News is the tension between the considerable, proscribed WMD capabilities that Iraq is holding on to and its increasing stridency that it has complied with UNSCR 687 and it is time to lift sanctions. If you wish to receive Iraq News by email, a service which includes full-text of news reports not archived here, send your request to Laurie Mylroie .

I. TARIQ AZIZ, CONT'D 
II. AL JAZIRAH, WAR CRIMES TRIALS FOR SADDAM, JAN 7
III. SAUDI PRESS AGENCY, OVERTHROW SADDAM, JAN 10
IV. EGYPT'S UPPER HOUSE, SADDAM IS TO BLAME, MENA, JAN 10
V. AL AKHBAR, SADDAM, THE DESTROYER, MENA, JAN 10
I. TARIQ AZIZ, CONT'D 
  After the aggression, the collaborators with Clinton had nothing left 
to alleviate the dilemma in which they find themselves today.  The 
United States has nothing up its sleeve, such as a new Madrid Conference 
to cover up their crimes and that of their master who rules in the White 
House.  They only have Netanyahu, who is mocking and denigrating them 
before their own peoples.  And here is Iraq coming out of the aggression 
once again stronger, loftier, and more influential in the entire Arab 
arena.  This is where the game of "changing the subject" began.  And 
this is the beginning of the trivial campaign, which is being launched 
by Mubarak's media against Iraq and its leader and leadership.  This is 
also where the game of postponing the Arab foreign ministers meeting 
began.  The collaborators think that by changing the subject through 
this campaign of trivialities and insults and postponing the ministerial 
meeting they can conceal the facts, hatch new plots, and even launch 
another aggression like the previous one.  But, all this will not change 
the established facts, and it will not relieve their dilemma.
   Iraq is steadfast and lofty.  It is demanding in unequivocal terms 
the condemnation of the aggression and the removal of the embargo first 
and foremost by the Arab regimes themselves and nothing else.
   If any of these collaborators thinks that the plots which are being 
hatched now; foremost the al-Ghardaqah meeting can make Iraq deviate 
from its demands, which are backed by all patriots in the Arab nation 
and all righteous and fair people in the world, they are being deluded. 
 Iraq, which has endured aggression and the embargo for eight years now 
and remained lofty, is capable of resisting and rejecting any suspect 
plans which are being hatched by the collaborators in order to return 
the situation to what it was in 1990 and 1991, even if under new 
formulas and cover.  In this principled position, Iraq will not be 
alone.  It will be backed, despite all the deception campaigns, by the 
Arab nation's masses and conscious patriotic forces.
II. AL JAZIRAH, WAR CRIMES TRIALS FOR SADDAM
Riyadh Al-Jazirah (Internet Version) in Arabic 7 Jan 99
[Editorial: "An Insane Tyrant"]
[FBIS Translated Text] The international community's consensus that 
Iraq's rulers have lost the prerogative to remain in power is not an 
unfair charge leveled against them. It does not overstep the Arab, 
Islamic, and international consensus that Saddam Husayn and his 
clique--who are corrupting everything that is beautiful in Iraq and even 
the values, morals, and history of the Arab and Islamic nation--deserve 
to be swept away by the international community's will from ruling Iraq 
and to be tried by a special international court on the basis of the 
same prerogatives that the international community had when the 
Nuremberg Court was formed in Germany to try the Nazi war criminals.
   Saddam Husayn personally shoulders the same measure of responsibility 
that Adolf Hitler bore for his crimes against humanity, foremost of them 
his crimes against the German people. Because of his insanity, the 
Germans lost several centuries of civilization and prosperity achieved 
over the centuries through their diligent work for prosperity, 
development, and cultural progress.
   Saddam Husayn and his ruling clique are doing exactly the same thing 
to Iraq, which has a rich civilization, and to the fraternal Iraqi 
people. Generations of Iraqis worked with dedication for hundreds of 
years to accomplish their cultural, development, prosperity, and wealth 
achievements. But all these achievements were lost by Saddam Husayn's 
megalomania. This mania has been and remains his psychological and moral 
complex because of his failure to achieve it and to convince others of 
it, except those who are cheering for him.
   The al-Jazirah Channel yesterday volunteered to transmit Saddam 
Husayn's speech in which he called on the Arab peoples to revolt against 
some of their rulers. The speech was the latest and strongest evidence 
provided by Saddam Husayn to Arab, Islamic, and world public opinion 
that he is really suffering from mental schizophrenia, between how he 
sees himself and how the Arab and Islamic peoples he is calling on to 
revolt view him.
   Saddam Husayn was probably deluded by the few demonstrations in the 
Arab and Islamic arena to denounce Operation Desert Fox. These were not 
staged out of love for him or his regime but out of love and pity for 
the fraternal Iraqi people and out of fear that they would suffer still 
more. We say that if Saddam was deluded into believing that these 
demonstrations were staged in support of him, why does he not then give 
the same measure of freedom to the Iraqi people to exercise the freedom 
to demonstrate and therefore see whether these demonstrations will be 
for or against him. Why, despite his suppression of the freedom to 
demonstrate, is he now putting his Republican Guard and intelligence 
services on a state of maximum alert to prevent any internal popular 
moves if he is so confident that such action will be in support of him 
and not an attack on and denunciation of him or a call for his removal?
   Saddam Husayn has not given the Iraqi people a chance to express 
themselves and their suffering. Hence we reiterate our belief that it is 
disgraceful for the international community to stand aside and watch 
this noble Arab Muslim people dying a thousand deaths a day from their 
suffering, anguish, repression, and despair.  
   It is also shameful for the international community to be incapable 
of taking legitimate action in the name of international law and 
humanity to save Iraq and its people from this tyrant whose spite, 
megalomania, and destruction mania make him sick. His fits of insanity 
and hysteria abate only when he sees the blood flowing from his victims 
and these victims writhing in pain from extreme pain, even whey they are 
in their death throes. This is the pleasure he craves and for whose sake 
he is clinging to power.
III. SAUDI PRESS AGENCY, OVERTHROW SADDAM
Riyadh SPA in Arabic 1248 GMT 10 Jan 99
[FBIS translated excerpt]
Riyadh, 10 Jan -- The political affairs editor at the Saudi news agency, 
SPA, has written the following commentary:
   Since Saddam Husayn assumed power in Iraq in 1979, the fraternal 
Iraqi people have been suffering under the yoke of his tyrannical rule 
which is inflicting various types of repression, torture, severe
punishment and massacres against these patient people.
   Perhaps the most atrocious of Saddam Husayn's crimes against his 
people was the crime he committed in the town of Halabjah, which he 
bombarded with chemical weapons, leaving more than 5,000 people dead and 
double that number of wounded and disabled people, in addition to his 
destruction of thousands of villages in northern Iraq and the forcible 
repatriation of tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens to Iran and Turkey.
   The international embargo imposed on the ruling Iraqi regime, whose 
price the Iraqi people are paying, is yet more evidence of this regime's 
domination and despotism against its people.
   The matter did not stop here with Saddam Husayn since he turned his 
attention to his neighbors who stood beside him when he was going 
through bad times. He raided them, desecrated their sanctities and 
entered into an eight-year losing war against his neighbor, Iran, which 
destroyed the resources of the Iraqi people.  
  As it has always been known everywhere, it is treason, betrayal, and 
conspiracy when a treacherous hand stretches in the dark toward the 
heart of a brother, friend or supporter to violate their honor, 
security, and wealth, thereby providing betrayal and excuses to the 
enemies of the nation and to those lying in wait for it; and when those 
responsible do not even have the decency to apologize for the mistakes 
they have committed, even though the near and far have denounced and 
disavowed them and rejected the law of the jungle In which he [Saddam] 
is trying to involve the Arab nation.
   The tyrant of Baghdad has returned to his enticement wearing another 
mask and calling on the Arab peoples to revolt against their legitimate 
leaderships with his evil soul enticing him to sow the seeds of
sedition among those peoples, instead of reforming himself and taking 
the opportunity of this blessed month to make a call for good and return 
to God.
   The fact is that the Iraqi people are the ones who deserve and need a 
revolution at a time when Saddam Husayn is celebrating the establishment 
of the army.  The tyrant of Baghdad has killed the best of this
Army's people inside Iraq and pursued them abroad, killing a larger 
number of them than those who died in military confrontations into the 
furnaces of which he threw them to satisfy his desires, whims, 
perversion and falsity. [passage omitted in same vein]
   The kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its sisterly Arab countries stood in 
the past by the fraternal Iraqi people, not to obtain a temporary media 
gain or cheap political spoils, but proceeding from lofty principles
and ideals which refuse to make somebody responsible for the sins of 
others and to blame the victim for the offense of the perpetrator.
   The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is, as it used to be, endeavoring 
continuously to assist the helpless Iraqi people, lift the injustice 
imposed on them, support them and work toward the lifting of the embargo 
to make food, clothing, educational material and all the requirements 
for a respectable life available to them.
   We call on God Almighty in this blessed month to guide us along the 
correct path and return security, stability, prosperity and affluence to 
the brotherly Iraqi people.
IV. EGYPT'S UPPER HOUSE, SADDAM IS TO BLAME
Egyptian Upper House Blames Iraq for Continuing Crisis 
Cairo MENA in Arabic 1210 GMT 10 Jan 99
 [FBIS Translated Text] Cairo, 10 Jan (MENA)-The Egyptian Consultative 
Council has declared that the efforts made by Egypt and other Arab 
countries to lift the economic sanctions on Iraq and prevent a
repetition of the military strikes against its resources were intended 
to lend support to the Iraqi people but not the Iraqi leadership, which 
is the party primarily responsible for the crisis of Iraq and the Arab 
nation.
   In a statement issued by its Arab Affairs, Defense, and National 
Security Committee, the Consultative Council held the Iraqi leadership 
responsible for the maintenance of the sanctions on Iraq until now and 
for giving international powers the opportunity to strike it more than 
once because of its faulty method of dealing with the United Nations.
   The statement added that the Iraqi leadership is primarily 
responsible for the Iraqi people's hardships and for inflicting huge 
financial and human losses on several other Arab countries as a result 
of its miscalculated, hostile decisions. It is also responsible for the 
foreign presence in the Gulf as a result of its reckless actions and the 
exhaustion of the Arab nation's resources in wars and conflicts instead 
of economic development.
   The statement said: The Iraqi leadership's conduct in the period 
following the Gulf war caused a further deterioration in the crisis 
caused by the invasion of Kuwait, an invasion that created a deep rift 
in Arab ranks. It compounded the Iraqi people's hardship and failed to 
build bridges of trust with the other Arab countries with the 
consequence that the effects of the aggression were not eliminated. A 
reckless political tone continued to represent a basic component of the 
Iraqi leadership's policies in a way that thwarted all attempts at 
reconciliation and unity of Arab ranks.
   The Egyptian Consultative Council's statement affirmed: Egypt always 
fulfilled its commitments to its brothers, sought to safeguard the unity 
of Arab ranks and Iraq's unity and to spare its people the
calamities of siege and bombardment. It stood by its side during its war 
with Iran and, indeed, the Egyptian people made numerous sacrifices for 
the sake of Iraq. Egypt tried to return Iraq to the Arab ranks
on the basis of Iraq's honoring of its Arab and international 
commitments and the settlement of its unresolved disputes with the Gulf 
countries, but the Iraqi regime's behavior and its insulting tone to 
Arab countries and leaders caused all the efforts made in this respect 
to fail.
   The statement said: If the Iraqi Government imagines it can return to 
the methods of terrorism and cheap propaganda in an attempt to drive a 
wedge between the Arab people and their governments or to incite coups 
d'etat and revolutions inside the Arab countries, then it is suffering 
from illusions that have no basis in fact. This shows that the Iraqi 
Government is unable to face the facts, persists in its refusal to 
rebuild what it destroyed in the past few years, and is seeking to 
provoke new disagreements between Iraq and the Arab countries on the 
basis of feeble, illogical pretexts.
   The Consultative Council's statement concluded by declaring its full 
support for all the positions adopted by President Husni Mubarak in his 
dealing with the Iraqi crisis.
V. AL AKHBAR, SADDAM, THE DESTROYER
Cairo MENA in Arabic 0703 GMT 10 Jan 99
Cairo, 10 Jan (MENA)-The Egyptian newspaper al-Akhbar affirms today that 
Iraqi ruler Saddam Husayn and his corrupt regime are an obstacle to the 
rapprochement, cooperation, and unity of the Arabs to further their 
vital political, economic, and social interests.
   In an editorial by its chief editor, Jalal Duwaydar, under the title 
"Will Arab solidarity remain hostage to Saddam's whims?", The paper 
asks:  will Arab solidarity and the closing of Arab ranks remain hostage 
to Saddam Husayn's recklessness, insanity, bloodthirstiness, and 
indifference to the interests of the fraternal Iraqi nation?
   It adds that the regrettable fact is that Saddam, by virtue of his 
hostility, criminality, and general conduct, has become a burden to any 
effort to rally Arab forces, and instead of regretting his hideous crime 
of invading and occupying Kuwait, which had a negative impact on the 
Arab nation, he persists in his hostile policy and refuses to abandon 
it.  The paper asks:  can there be a greater degree of recklessness, 
lying, and misleading policies than that perpetrated by the Iraqi 
regime?
   It points out that this regime, its pillars, and henchmen believe 
that they are skillful at confusing the issues and deceiving others to 
the point that they are deceiving themselves and expect others to 
believe them.
   Al-Akhbar continues:  is it not laughable to allege that the 
demonstrations protesting the military strikes against the fraternal 
Iraqi people were expressions of support for the butchers' regime in 
Baghdad?
   The paper declares that it has become evident that Iraq's haddam 
[word play on Saddam's name, meaning destroyer of Iraq] is not qualified 
to govern, that he is unaware of his responsibilities toward his own 
people snd nation in his every frenzied action, and that instead of 
seeking to rally the Arab countries' support for the Iraqi people to end 
the ordeal he created with his own reckless obstinacy, ignorance, and 
thoughtless aggressiveness, he insists on uttering insults against their 
leaders.
   The paper says that Iraq's destroyer miscalculates and believes he 
can terrorize the entire Arab world in the same way in which he 
exercised bloody terrorism against the fraternal Iraqi people, 
humiliating and impoverishing them and causing them to lose their 
dignity and sovereignty over their land.
[Description of source:  government news agency]