Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : News Links and Chart Links -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Saulamanca who wrote (4494)	1/2/2003 1:54:03 PM
From: pallmer	Respond to of 29602

-- WRAPUP 3-U.S. moves troops to Gulf, Iraq expects invasion -- (Adds U.N. spokesman, paragraph 13-14, Amin, 15, Arab appeal 3, 23-24, U.S. Christians, 25-26) By Nadim Ladki BAGHDAD, Jan 2 (Reuters) - More than 11,000 U.S. troops prepared to head for the Gulf and Iraq's deputy prime minister accused Washington on Thursday of planning to invade Iraq regardless of the verdict of U.N. weapons inspectors. On the diplomatic front, an Iranian newspaper reported what it said was a U.S.-Russian plan to persuade Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to hand over power and go to Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry declined to comment. A group of Arab intellectuals said they planned to appeal to the Arab world to pressure Saddam to step down to avert a war. U.S. defence officials said the deployment of the desert-trained 3rd Infantry Division would be the first of a full combat division to the Gulf since the 1991 Gulf War. Other units are also on notice to move and their arrival would double the nearly 60,000 U.S. personnel already in the region. Military analysts say the U.S. invasion plans are likely to involve as many as 250,000 troops. The latest deployments make ever more concrete President George W. Bush's threat to disarm Iraq of its suspected weapons of mass destruction by force. Bush says he has made no decision on whether to attack Iraq, which was ordered by the U.N. Security Council in November to disarm or face serious consequences. Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tareq Aziz, accused Washington of planning to invade his country regardless of what U.N. arms inspectors turn up, as part of a plan to control the region's oil supplies. "They didn't say 'let us wait for a while for the result of the inspection and then let's decide what to do'," Aziz told several groups of European activists in Baghdad to show their opposition to war on Iraq. "When they continue their preparations for the war of aggression, what does that mean? It doesn't mean that they are genuinely afraid of an imaginary Iraqi threat. It means that they have an imperialist design," he said in English. "That design is to invade Iraq, to occupy Iraq and use the national resources of Iraq for the purposes of... the American capitalist regime," he said. "When America becomes stronger economically, when America takes over the whole oil of the region and puts it in its hands it is going to pressure politically and economically every country that needs oil," Aziz said. OIL PRICES LEAP World oil prices opened the year with a three percent leap on Thursday, mainly because a Venezuelan strike pushed U.S. stocks close to a 26-year low. International benchmark Brent crude oil climbed 79 cents to $29.45 per barrel. In Baghdad, a U.N. spokesman said in Baghdad teams from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) drove on Thursday to six sites in central and northwest Iraq. Among them was the former Ash Sharqat Uranium Enrichment Facility. The U.N. spokesman said the site was now a chemical plant producing nitric acid and ammonium nitrate. "The inspectors did not find any prohibited activities or prohibited items in those 230 sites that have been visited till now," said Hussam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi official liaising with U.N. inspectors. U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix will probably visit Baghdad between January 18 and 20 before reporting on the inspections to the U.N. Security Council on January 27, U.N. sources in New York said. NEWSPAPER REPORTS 'PLAN TO OUST SADDAM' In Tehran, the daily paper Entekhab said German Foreign Minster Joschka Fischer had told his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharrazi that Washington and Moscow were considering a plan to persuade Saddam Hussein to leave power and go to Moscow. The German Foreign Ministry said the two ministers had spoken by telephone, but denied Fischer had said Washington was trying to topple Saddam without going to war. "According to existing reports Iraq will be ruled in the future through a federal state and the Ba'ath party will not be totally removed from power," the paper said. "The composition of the future government in Baghdad will be influenced by the decisions made in the London meeting of the Iraqi opposition last month," it added. Aziz dismissed the Iraqi opposition in exile and said U.S. attempts to impose it as rulers of Iraq were "laughable". "It has not happened in the modern history of Iraq that change occurred from London or Washington," he said. "The Iraqi people will not accept... agents who come on top of a tank to rule Iraq." A group of writers and lawyers from several Arab countries said they were launching an appeal to the Arab world to exercise pressure for Saddam and close aides to step down. "The immediate resignation of Saddam, whose rule over three decades has been a nightmare for Iraq and the Arab world, is the only way around further violence," their appeal reads. ((Writing by Andrew Roche; editing by Helen Popper; London newsroom +44.207542.9784)) (C) Reuters 2003. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. nL31531506 02-Jan-2003 18:48:57 GMT Source RTRS - Reuters News