Iraqi Official Suggests a Duel
Thu Oct 3, 9:25 AM ET
dailynews.yahoo.com
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - An Iraqi vice president offered a unique solution to the
U.S.-Iraq standoff: a duel between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein
Taha Yassin Ramadan said the duel could be held at
a neutral site and with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan as the referee.
Ramadan, wearing a green uniform and a black beret,
made his remarks without giving any outward sign
that he was joking although reporters who were
present detected a note of irony in his voice.
"A president against a president and vice president
against a vice president and a duel takes place, if
they are serious, and in this way we are saving the
American and the Iraqi people," Ramadan told the
Associated Press Television Network.
Iraq has two vice presidents, and Ramadan did not
say whether he or Taha Muhie-eldin Marouf would
take on Dick Cheney .
Ramadan also said that his government was not
concerned by U.S. lawmakers' support of a
congressional resolution that would authorize
President Bush to use military
force against Iraq.
"We pay no attention to this issue," he said, adding
that approving such a resolution "makes no difference" to Iraq.
Ramadan criticized U.S. efforts to delay the return of U.N. weapons inspectors
to Iraq until the Security Council adopts tougher measures that would give the
inspectors broad new powers to hunt for weapons of mass destruction and
provide them with military backing.
He said such efforts were aimed at "hampering the inspection process."
"They (the Americans) were surprised by the agreement reached by Iraq and
the United Nations . So their reaction was unbalanced," he
said, referring to the deal in Vienna on Tuesday between Iraq and chief U.N.
weapons inspector Hans Blix.
Under the agreement, Iraq agreed to an unconditional return of the inspectors
under the existing U.N. Security Council resolutions and a 1998 agreement that
put the so-called presidential sites - including Saddam's palaces - off-limits
to surprise visits.
At the United Nations, the United States was pursuing a tough resolution that
would end the exemption for those sites, give Iraq 30 days to compile an
"accurate, full and complete" inventory of all aspects of its weapons programs
- and provide U.N. inspectors military backing to carry out their search.
But the three other veto-wielding members of the Security Council - Russia,
China and France - have said they are not ready to authorize force before
inspectors have time to test Iraq's willingness to comply.
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