News

Saddam's Latest Speech; Iraqi Threat to the Kurds

Iraq News08 August 1998

By Laurie Mylroie

The central focus of Iraq News is the tension between the considerable, proscribed WMD capabilities that Iraq is holding on to and its increasing stridency that it has complied with UNSCR 687 and it is time to lift sanctions. If you wish to receive Iraq News by email, a service which includes full-text of news reports not archived here, send your request to Laurie Mylroie .





I. SADDAM SPEECH ON 1OTH ANNIVERSARY OF END OF IRAN WAR, AFP, AUG 8
II. PETER GALBRAITH, SADDAM IS AT IT AGAIN, WASH POST, AUG 9

  With apologies, "Iraq News" is horribly behind.  Issues are being
prepared on two matters described in the AFP article following--Saddam's
belligerent Aug 8 speech and the extraordinarily weak UNSC response to
Iraq's Aug 5 declaration that it would prohibit further UNSCOM/IAEA
inspections.
  Another issue is being prepared on the bombings of the US embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania.  Kenya, it should be remembered, is a UNSC member.
When the Kenyans finally understand what happened, perhaps some months
hence, and perhaps with a hint from Baghdad, how keen will they be to 
keep voting with the US on Iraq sanctions?
  Yet the information that is available about the Kenyan/Tanzanian 
bombings is very limited. Therefore, the core of that issue of "Iraq 
News" will be the Feb 26, 93 World Trade Center bombing.  There is an 
enormous amount of information available about that bomb, as there were 
arrests, FBI investigations, and trials.  
  The Trade Center bombing marked the first instance in which Iraqi 
terrorism directed against the US was misunderstood as Islamic 
fundamentalist terrorism.  I wrote about that in the 1995/1996 winter 
issue of The National Interest, "The World Trade Center Bomb: Who is 
Ramzi Yousef? Why it Matters."
   The article began by noting that the Clinton administration had
turned the problem of terrorism from a national security issue, with the
focus on finding and punishing the state sponsors of terrorism, into a
criminal issue, with the focus on arresting the perpetrators.
  That problem is evident in the US response to the Kenya/Tanzania 
bombs.  Clinton said Fri, and essentially repeated it Sat, "We will use 
all the means at our disposal to bring those responsible to justice, no 
matter what or how long it takes."  That is like fighting malaria by 
swatting mosquitoes, rather than draining the swamps.
  The second part of the article explained that the mastermind of the
World Trade Center bomb, Ramzi Yousef--who in Jan 95 was involved in a
abortive plot in the Philippines to bomb 11 US airplanes flying Pacific
routes--is an Iraqi intelligence agent and that the Trade Center bombing
was a false flag operation, carried out by Iraq, using Muslim
fundamentalists.
 As chance has it, just before the Kenya/Tanzania bombings, the
Federation of American Scientists kindly offered to post that article on
its website. It can be found at:
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iraq/956-tni.htm