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Iraqi Parliament Rejects
U.N. Resolution on Inspectors
Associated Press
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's parliament Tuesday unanimously recommended rejection of a a United Nations resolution on arms inspections, but said the final decision would be left to President Saddam Hussein.
After the parliament session, parliament speaker Saadoun Hammadi described the vote as "a message to the United States that the people of Iraq are united behind their leadership and it also shows that the people of Iraq know that in the U.N. resolution ... there are major allegations which are baseless." "This decision by the Iraqi National Assembly is the right and patriotic stance which expresses the Iraqi people's opinion," he said.
The U.N. has asked Iraq to respond by Friday.
According to a resolution read during the session, the 250-member parliament accepted an earlier recommendation to reject the U.N. resolution from its foreign relations committee.
It went on to say the "political leadership" should "adopt what it considers appropriate to defend the Iraqi people and Iraq's independence and dignity and authorizes President Saddam Hussein to adopt what he sees as appropriate, expressing our full support for his wise leadership." Parliament speaker Mr. Hammadi asked deputies to vote on the first clause of the resolution by a show of hands and announced it had been accepted unanimously. It was not clear how many members were present.
Mr. Hammadi then called for a vote on the second clause referring the matter to Mr. Hussein, and again announced unanimous approval. A third vote was held for the entire proposal, and it also was approved unanimously.
If Iraq rejects the resolution the U.N. Security Council approved unanimously last Friday, or accepts it but falters afterward in following the tough provisions of the resolution, the U.S. and Britain have made clear they will attack Iraq.
On Tuesday, in the clearest such statement yet from France, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said on France-Inter radio that force would be used against Mr. Hussein if he doesn't cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. France had opposed making the recourse to force automatic.
Mr. Hussein had asked lawmakers to convene an emergency session to advise the ruling Revolutionary Command Council he heads on how to respond to the U.N. The debate began Monday night.
The U.N. resolution demands inspectors have unrestricted access to any suspected weapons site and the right to interview Iraqi scientists outside the country and without Iraqi officials present. Iraq, which maintains it no longer has any weapons of mass destruction, has insisted on respect for its sovereignty, an argument it has used in the past to restrict access to Mr. Hussein's palaces.
But Odai Saddam Hussein, Mr. Hussein's eldest son, said in a letter distributed to parliament as it reconvened Tuesday: "We have to agree to the U.N. Security Council resolution with limits on certain points, but not, we say, conditions."
"There should not be approval of the resolution without an Arab umbrella or, if this is not possible, then under the so-called Arab League and there should be Arab experts or technicians and monitors [on the inspection teams] who are familiar with the nuclear, chemical and biological side," the president's son said in his letter, which also was distributed to reporters in Baghdad by the Information Ministry.
Arab League foreign ministers who met over the weekend in Egypt and urged Mr. Hussein to accept the U.N. Security Council resolution also demanded that Arab arms experts be included on the U.N. teams.
The U.S. has portrayed similar calls in the past from Baghdad as unacceptable attempts to manipulate the U.N.
The U.S. national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has warned Iraq to bow to the resolution without wasting "the world's time with another game of cat and mouse." Odai Saddam Hussein, who won 99.99% of the vote in his constituency in the last parliamentary election in 2000, has a high profile in Iraq, running an influential newspaper and a television station. Flamboyant and said to have a violent temper, he was considered the main candidate to succeed his father as leader of Iraq until he was badly injured in a 1996 assassination attempt.
His younger and lower-key brother, Qusai, is now believed to hold a stronger position and has several important posts, including head of the Republican Guards, the country's best-trained and best-equipped troops.
In his letter Tuesday, Odai Saddam Hussein said acceptance of the U.N. resolution would not necessarily ward off war. "We have to know our enemy and that the U.N. resolution does not mean stopping him from committing military action. We also have to take precautions and measures and here we have to ask the Arab countries to immediately cut oil supplies to those countries that launch a military strike or aggression on Iraq and to any country that allows foreign war planes to use their airports or offer logistic support for them for refueling ...," his letter said.
Arab oil producers have ignored similar calls from Iraq in the past, saying stopping sales wasn't in their interest.
Copyright (c) 2002 The Associated Press
Updated November 12, 2002 7:20 a.m. EST |
