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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (53445)	10/20/2002 3:43:45 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Any validity? US weighing Israeli plan to disarm Iraq By a Staff Writer arabnews.com WASHINGTON, 20 October — The Bush administration is weighing an Israeli proposal for a joint operation in the western Iraqi desert to disarm missiles before they could be launched against Israel. If successful, the operation might not only protect Israeli civilians from an Iraqi attack like the one they weathered in the 1991 Gulf War but also eliminate the prospect of an Israeli retaliatory attack on Iraq. The proposal was presented during Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s talks in Washington this week with President George W. Bush and senior White House, Pentagon and State Department officials. Afterward, both sides said Sharon had received assurances that the United States would make a maximum effort to reduce any threat Iraq posed to Israel. The Israeli plan, which would use Israeli intelligence and US special forces, was not divulged, but an account was provided to The Associated Press by a US official on condition of anonymity. Israel yielded to a request from President George Bush in the 1991 Gulf War to hold its fire even though 39 Iraqi Scud missiles landed on Israeli territory. Bush did not want to risk losing the Arab states that supported his war to reverse Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. This time, however, Prime Minister Sharon has declared Israel "will take the proper steps to defend its citizens" if Iraq launches a missile attack. And while there are fewer Arab states lined up with the United States there still could be a risk of defection if Israel attacked Iraq. On Wednesday, with Sharon at his side in the Oval Office, Bush endorsed Israel’s right to self-defense. But Sharon was not given a response to the special forces proposal during his three-day visit, and it is under consideration, the US official said. Bush, meanwhile, has approved US combat training for Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein, The Washington Post reported. As many as 5,000 recruits will begin an initial training phase next month, the newspaper said, quoting unidentified administration and military officials. The training was authorized by Bush in a presidential directive on Oct. 3 that also allowed for $92 million in Defense Department funds, the Post said. The top Iraqi Kurdish military commander said his forces would seek to capture oil-rich areas if the United States strikes at Saddam Hussein’s regime. The battlefield strategy outlined by Comdr. Hamid Efendi gives added muscle to an Iraqi Kurdish draft constitution proposed earlier this month that envisioned the oil center of Kirkuk as the future capital of their homeland. But the Kurdish goal of extending their authority to the prized oil fields around Kirkuk and Mosul — now outside the Western-protected Kurdish enclave — carries military and political risks that could trouble Pentagon planners. Turkey sees the oil-producing areas as a traditional ethnic Turkish zone. On the diplomatic front, a deal to break a deadlock among big powers at the UN Security Council could be approaching as French officials yesterday discussed a US compromise resolution dropping authorization to use force against Iraq. French diplomatic sources with President Jacques Chirac at a summit of French-speaking nations in Beirut said only that talks were still progressing. "We are not yet at the point where a deal has been reached," one French diplomatic source said. But French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin returned early to Paris from the Beirut summit, prompting speculation real progress had finally been made at the UN Security Council.