Oil bears get "Saddam-ized" once again:
ap.tbo.com
Sep 25, 2000 - 06:54 PM
Saddam Warns Saudi, Kuwait Not to Push Iraq to
the Brink
By Leon Barkho
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - President Saddam Hussein on Monday
issued a stern warning against Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to stop
provoking Iraq by offering logistical support to the United States
and Britain.
Saddam accused the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments of pushing
the people of Iraq into a confrontation. "But if things come to a
head," then Iraq knows how to confront them, he said.
Addressing a hurriedly convened news conference nearly two
hours after Saddam's comments were carried by the official Iraqi
News Agency, Information Minister Humam Abdel-Khaliq said Iraq
had no intention to attack Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.
"The president's talk contains no threat and I assure you that we
have no intention of taking military action against Kuwait or any
other state," he said.
It quoted him as saying that, without Saudi and Kuwaiti blessing,
the United States would not be able to continue enforcing no-fly
zones and keep Iraq under crippling U.N. trade sanctions.
He urged the two nations not to push Iraq to the brink of
confrontation. "May they (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) think deeply
and in a manner that is far-sighted," he said.
Monday's warning was the harshest by Saddam to the two
countries since a U.S.-led force pressed the Iraqi army out of
Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War. It also follows similar warnings made
by Iraq this month against Kuwait, accusing it of stealing Iraqi
crude oil from a field straddling the border.
His remarks are expected to inflame a jittery oil market as
skyrocketing prices saw some relief on Monday following last
week's U.S. decision to dip into America's strategic oil reserves.
Saddam himself said he had no intention to attack Kuwait or Saudi
Arabia, but urged his two neighbors "not to force our people to
exert pressure on us in this manner."
He said the two countries, together with the United States, are
"waging a war against us via the embargo and warplanes, killing
children, women and the elderly."
"They (Saudi and Kuwait) will say Saddam Hussein is threatening
us. Look how impolite they have become," he said.
Saddam's warning coincides with the opening in Venezuela of a
crucial OPEC summit in which Iraq is represented by
Vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan who, in remarks carried by
Iraqi News Agency, said Iraq will press OPEC heads of state to
steer the cartel away from foreign influence, particularly that of the
United States.
Ramadan accused the United States, the world's largest oil
consumer, of pursuing a policy that is "exploitative and
detrimental" to the interests of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries.
Despite U.N. trade sanctions imposed for its 1990 invasion of
Kuwait, Iraq is now a key oil producer with an average output of 3
million barrels a day. Volatile markets fear Iraq may cut off or
reduce supplies, sending already record high prices into a tailspin
as most producers are producing near or at maximum capacity.
Ramadan also said Iraq will try to underline what he described as
"negative practices" by some OPEC members to increase
production and flood markets unilaterally, in an apparent reference
to Saudi Arabia. |
