You're good at this.......the sentence identified in bold......is that an example of conservative doublespeak?
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Iraqis Meet on UN Resolution
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Nov. 11) - Iraqi lawmakers gathered Monday for an emergency session called by President Saddam Hussein to consider a response to a U.N. resolution, a day after Arab ministers urged Baghdad to cooperate with weapons inspectors.
Iraq has until Friday to accept or reject the resolution, approved unanimously by the 15-member U.N. Security Council last week. It threatens Iraq with ''serious consequences'' unless it cooperates.
Should the rubber-stamp parliament recommend acceptance, the Iraqi leader would have some cover for retreating from previous objections to any new resolution governing weapons inspections.
Parliament's response to the resolution, which demands Iraq cooperate with U.N. inspectors hunting for weapons of mass destruction, will be a recommendation to the Revolutionary Command Council, Iraq's major executive body headed by Saddam.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice dismissed the legislative gathering as ''ludicrous.''
''Saddam Hussein is an absolute dictator and tyrant, and the idea that somehow he expects the Iraqi parliament to debate this - they've never debated anything else,'' Rice said on ABC's ''This Week.'' ''I'm surprised he's even bothering to go through this ploy.''
The Security Council resolution gives inspectors unrestricted access to any suspected weapons site and the right to interview Iraqi scientists outside the country and without Iraqi officials present - both issues that could become points of dispute.
Iraq has insisted on respect for its sovereignty, an argument it has used in the past to restrict access to Saddam's palaces.
Officials in Russia, with long-standing ties to Iraq, on Monday urged Baghdad to cooperate with inspectors, saying the resolution reduced the threat of war. ''Much will depend on how the Iraqi side behaves,'' Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov told the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Senior Bush administration officials said the president has approved tentative Pentagon plans for invading Iraq should a new U.N. arms inspection effort fail. The strategy calls for a land, sea and air force of 200,000 to 250,000 troops, officials said.
''Should military action become necessary for our own security, I will commit the full force and might of the United States military and we will prevail,'' President Bush said Monday in a White House speech.
In Baghdad, the state-run al-Jumhuriya daily on Monday urged Arab governments and people to ''stand firm against U.S. aggressive schemes'' against Iraq and the Arabs. In a front-page editorial, the newspaper called on Arab governments to use oil as a weapon against the United States and Britain.
Saddam has called on Arab oil exporters to boycott the West before, but Gulf oil producers say such a move would be impractical and not in their interest.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement on its Web site that U.S.-British aircraft enforcing a no-fly zone in southern Iraq fired precision-guided weapons Sunday at two surface-to-air missile sites near Talil, 175 miles southeast of Baghdad, in response to Iraqi hostile acts. There was no word from Baghdad on the strike, and the U.S. military said damage assessment was ongoing.
In Cairo, foreign ministers of Arab League nations ended a two-day meeting with a final communique that seeks to avoid a U.S.-Iraq confrontation.
It urges Iraq and the United Nations to work together to implement the resolution and calls on the United States to commit to pledges it gave Syria that the resolution could not be used to justify military action.
''In our deliberations, the consensus was to deal with the Security Council resolution, accepting its direction, and this is left for the government of Iraq to decide,'' Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told reporters late Sunday after the meeting ended.
The Arab ministers put forward a united position of ''absolute rejection'' of any military action against Iraq, saying it represents a threat to the security of all Arab nations - a view Iraqi officials have pressed in recent lobbying of fellow Arab leaders.
They also demanded Arab experts be included on U.N. weapons inspection teams, but did not specify numbers or nationalities, and called on the Security Council to require Israel to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction.
A spokesman for the U.N. inspection operation said a list of inspectors and their country of origin was not immediately available.
However, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is an Egyptian, Mohamed ElBaradei. His agency is in charge of looking for clandestine nuclear materials while the U.N. Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission headed by Hans Blix, a Swede, is responsible for searching out chemical and biological weapons programs.
In Damascus, Syria, the opposition Iraqi Communist Party in exile urged the government to accept the resolution, calling it ''the last chance for a diplomatic and peaceful solution.''
AP-NY-11-11-02 1039EST
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. |
