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 .
APRIL 20, 1998
I. SAHHAF: IRAQ HAS MET UN RESOLUTIONS, REUTERS, APR 18
II. SADDAM WATCHES PARADE BY VOLUNTEER ARMY, REUTERS, APR 18
III. IRAQI PAPER: TIME LIMIT FOR PALACE INSPECTIONS, REUTERS, APR 18
IV. TARIQ AZIZ CALLS FOR LIFTING SANCTIONS, INA, APR 3
NOTE: Max Van der Stoel's report on human rights in Iraq can be found at
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu4/chrrep/98chr67.htm or at the INC website
http://www.inc.org.uk
Last week representatives from the Russian and French embassies in
Baghdad met with both Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani in Northern
Iraq and advised them to come to terms with Saddam.
Yesterday, the NYT, "Clean Bill for Iraqis on A-Arms? Experts Upset,"
reported on the criticism of the IAEA's near clean bill of health on
Iraq's nuclear program. "Some American experts are raising alarms and
charging the agency with complacency . . . Iraq 'has already learned
enough to be able to build a nuclear weapon in less than a year,' David
Albright, president of the independent Institute for Science and
International Security in Washington and a former inspector for the
agency in Iraq, wrote in the May-June issue of The Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientist. All that is required is enough enriched uranium or
plutonium, which are available on the black market."
In yesterday's lead editorial, the Wash Post warned that soon Iraq
and its allies can be "expected to resume lobbying for a phony
certificate of compliance [from UNSCOM]. The last time that happened,
the United States found itself with no appealing options. One wonders
whether it is using this interval to put itself in a more advantageous
position next time around."
Indeed, already, Iraq's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Sahhaf, is in NYC
to lobby for precisely that. Sahhaf stopped in Cairo, Sat and Sun, en
route to the US, and met the Egyptian President and Foreign Minister, as
well as the Secretary General of the Arab League. In Cairo, Sat, Sahhaf
said that Iraq had implemented the UNSC resolutions and "It is Iraq's
right to ask for an end to the sanctions."
Also, on Sat, Iraq's "volunteer army" paraded for six hours in
Baghdad's "Grand Festivities Square," a large outdoor arena marked by
two sets of enormous forearms, cast from Saddam's own, holding enormous
crossed swords [see Samir al Khalil, pseud for Kanan Makiya, The
Monument, University of California Press, 1991].
Iraq's "volunteer army" arose earlier this year. A letter Saddam had
sent the Bath party leadership Jan 16 was read on Iraqi TV Jan 17, after
his speech that day, marking the anniversary of the start of the Gulf
war, in which he proclaimed that Iraq "is irrevocably determined to wage
the greater jihad for the lifting of the blockade." A campaign to
enlist the population in "voluntary" paramilitary training followed.
The training program, such that it was, is now completed and the
occasion was marked on Sat as the "Day of Gallantry."
Also, on Sat, the government newspaper, al Jumhuriya, ran a front
page editorial asserting that "visits to presidential sites is not an
open process without a time ceiling" as Iraq's oil minister had told
Deputy UNSCOM Chairman, Charles Duelfer, and Duelfer explained in his
annex to the palace inspections report.
Not only does it seem Saddam has something in mind, but it would seem
that he intended to wait for the completion of the palace inspections
and then make another move. Already on Apr 3, the day after those
inspections ended, Tariq Aziz asserted that the result of the
inspections "makes it imperative for the U.N. Security Council to
seriously work for the lifting of the eight-year-old unjust embargo on
Iraq and which has been prolonged by the false allegations on Iraq's
position." That statement was followed by a number of newspaper
articles to the same effect. Then, on Apr 13, the Iraqi cabinet issued
a similar call [see "Iraq News," Apr 16]. On Apr 16, the RCC and Bath
party leadership issued a joint statement repeating the cabinet
statement [see "Iraq News," Apr 17].
There is every reason to believe Saddam intends to do something in
the not too distant future that he thinks will further the lifting of
sanctions. This is often how the regime signals its moves. An
official, like Tariq Aziz, makes a statement. The same point may appear
in the press. Then it is repeated in formal statements by various
authorities, making its way up the Iraqi food chain. When the RCC-Party
leadership, the highest authority in Iraq, save for Saddam himself, says
something, it is a serious statement. "Iraq News" can recall no
occasion in which such statements were not followed by action, even if
it may be difficult beforehand to anticipate what that action will be.