Iraq's ruling Baath party on Friday, March 2, rejected a US campaign to draw up a new sanctions regime as nothing more than a subtler means to "strangle" Baghdad.
"A decade after the implementation of the embargo ... they have started to look for an even more cunning regime of sanctions," said the ruling party's daily, Ath-Thawra.
It charged that the United States with its British allies were now "trying to strangle (Iraq) with a silk cord rather than to decapitate it with a sword" under the current sanctions regime.
"Fear of seeing the sanctions regime collapse has pushed them to opt for a form of embargo that can be prolonged" indefinitely, it said.
The United States has been rallying European and Arab support for tougher sanctions against military shipments to Iraq, to be matched by an easing of measures that impact directly on Iraqi civilians.
Iraq has been under sanctions linked to the elimination of its weapons of mass destruction since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. — (AFP, Baghdad)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
