maybe this will help the price.....
Noose Tightens On Iraq To Force Compliance
5.09 p.m. ET (2210 GMT) November 12, 1998
WASHINGTON — War in the Gulf loomed large Thursday when the United States and Iraq ruled out compromise in the crisis over U.N. arms inspections.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan showed no inclination to repeat his peace mission of last February when he helped defuse the last showdown over Baghdad's attempts to shake off sanctions and international arms monitors.
Defense Secretary William Cohen warned Baghdad any military strikes would be "significant'' but Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz responded with fatalism, saying his people were dying anyway from the effects of sanctions.
"There is no light at the end of the tunnel,'' Aziz told a news conference. "There will be no peaceful solution... unless the United States agreed to the principle of lifting sanctions.''
But White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said: "I think what you heard is a lone voice that is completely isolated... There's really nothing to negotiate here.''
A dozen B-52 heavy bombers, which can fire cruise missiles, were leaving bases in the United States along with a similar number of stealth fighters Thursday, heading to reinforce a major U.S. presence already in the Gulf.
Cohen said Washington was sick of the crises which began with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, continued with the Gulf War early in 1991 and have repeatedly recurred as the United Nations sought to ensure the destruction of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
"People are fed up with this,'' Cohen said. "(Saddam) cannot continue in this kind of cat-and-mouse game... I have not seen anything coming out of Baghdad that would indicate he is interested in complying with Security Council resolutions.''
But Aziz said U.N. arms inspections, curtailed by Baghdad at the end of October, would be allowed to continue only if the sanctions imposed after the invasion of Kuwait were scrapped.
Referring to Annan, Aziz said: "If anybody wants to solve this crisis by peaceful means... let him do it. And he is the best person in the world to do it in his capacity as the secretary-general of the United Nations.''
In New York, Annan's spokesman said the secretary-general had no plans to travel to Baghdad to mediate a solution.
Security Council members Russia, the United States and France all expressed varying shades of reluctance for Annan to go to Iraq and risk a repeat of his February trip, which served only to postpone the day of reckoning now looming.
With Iraq looking increasingly isolated, Egypt, Syria and six Gulf states told Baghdad it would be solely responsible for any military strikes against it if it refused to allow arms inspections.
Oil prices rose Thursday as raids on producer Iraq appeared more likely. International benchmark Brent ended 31 cents up at $12.42 a barrel.
In Israel, a government official said Saddam could try to attack the Jewish state if he thought he was personally at risk of being killed by a U.S. strike.
"It would suit him very much to take us with him,'' the official said. "If he has to leave this earth in a spaceship, there are some seats that are reserved for us. That is my scenario.''
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