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DUBAI, Aug 1: UN Secretary General Koffi Annan warned on Thursday the United States against military action to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein saying new strikes would not be “wise”.
“I think my position is very clear since I have spoken on the subject several times,” Annan told the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat after the leaking of the latest in a long list of reported US military plots to overthrow saddam Hussein.
“I have said that striking Iraq would not be wise,” Annan stressed.
The US policy of ousting Saddam “is not the UN’s (policy) and the Security Council has taken no decision about this,” he said.
Annan added that he had “neither the desire nor the mandate to prepare the ground for military action” against Iraq.
But he ruled out a re-run of his trip to Baghdad in Feb 1998 when he negotiated a last-minute deal to allow UN weapons inspectors access to sensitive “presidential” sites and avoid punitive US and British air strikes.
“I have no plans to visit Baghdad for the time being,” the UN chief said.
Washington, in the belief Iraq is again developing weapons of mass destruction, has demanded the return of inspectors on pain of a new offensive against Saddam.
Iraq on Wednesday renewed a call to the Security Council to seek a “comprehensive settlement” of outstanding issues rather than merely insist on the return of arms monitors, who fled on the eve of a Dec 1998 air blitz on Baghdad for failing to cooperate with the UN arms body.
Baghdad resumed dialogue with the world body in March after a year-long freeze and has demanded the lifting of the sanctions imposed in 1990 for invading Kuwait.
However, Annan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri made no headway in the last round of talks last month.
“We had a lot of discussion on disarmament but the Iraqi delegation did not have a mandate to go forward. So I suggested the Iraqi delegation hold consultations and then tell me what its government wishes to do,” Annan told the daily.
BUSH DETERMINED ON ‘REGIME CHANGE’: US President George W. Bush on Thursday affirmed that he still deemed a regime change in Iraq critical, but said he would proceed deliberately and patiently.
In a White House meeting with key Middle Eastern ally King Abdullah of Jordan, Bush called himself a “patient man,” but said his government’s policy of advocating a regime change in Iraq, has not changed “since the last time (the king) was in the Oval Office.”
“Saddam Hussein is a man who poisons his own people, who threatens his neighbors, who develops weapons of mass destruction,” he said in remarks before the two went into closed-door meetings.
“And I’ll assure his majesty, like I have in the past, we’re looking at all options. And one of the things we will do is consult with our friends.”
Bush has made no secret of his determination to remove Saddam Hussein from power, insisting that the Iraqi president’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction posed a threat to the United States and its allies.
US lawmakers have insisted Bush consult Congress and clearly outline his military plan before pursuing his objective, and warned at the start of two days of hearings Wednesday that he would have to persuade the public and skeptical allies, particularly those in the region, to support the initiative.
On Monday, Bush underscored his determination to crush threats posed by the “world’s worst leaders.”
“We cannot let the world’s worst leaders blackmail the United States or our friends and allies with the world’s worst weapons,” Bush said on a fundraising tour in South Carolina.
EX-UN COORDINATOR: A former UN assistant secretary general and humanitarian coordinator for Iraq said on Thursday a possible United States attack on Iraq “is in no way justified”, in an interview with Austrian public radio.
“Such a pre-emptive strike is against international law, and I do not think Washington will get a mandate from the United Nations Security Council for it,” said Hans Von Sponeck.
“A decision to wage war may have been made on paper, but it is not clear what the US strategy will be should Iraqi President Saddam Hussein fall,” he added.
Von Sponeck, who resigned his post in 2000 to protest UN sanctions on Iraq, warned that Baghdad should receive guarantees that weapons inspectors in the country “should not again be used for espionage tactics”.
“It is no secret anymore that UN observers, who should have been neutral, were used by American and British secret services,” he said.
The German diplomat rapped US foreign policymakers, saying that in Washington “no one apart from US Secretary of State Colin Powell understands the situation in the Middle East”.
TURKEY ANGERED: Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has expressed uneasiness over the activities of its key ally the United States in Kurdish-held northern Iraq amid mounting fears of a possible US strike to oust the Baghdad regime.
“We are uncomfortable with some of the work US officials are carrying out there (in northern Iraq),” Ecevit was quoted as saying in the liberal Radikal daily Thursday.
“We should be informed of their work in detail. More care should be taken. We have conveyed our views to the United States,” he said.—AFP
