Iraq called Arabs to hit back at US interests if Baghdad comes under attack. Iraqi Vice President, Taha Yassin Ramadan, after talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II, called on the "Arab masses" to hit at American lives and property in case of a US assault.
"We call on the Arab masses to fight against the material and human interests of the aggressors wherever they are," he said. "It is a human right, in that any aggression against Iraq will constitute an aggression against the Arab nation and humanity because it aims at imposing (US) hegemony and a new colonialism."
Ramadan added: "Iraq has a religious right to defend itself and this being the case all Arab citizens wherever they might be have the right to fight by all available means the aggression through its representatives on their land."
On his part, Iraq's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, accused the United States of "closing the doors" on all attempts to find a peaceful solution to the standoff on weapons.
And in an interview with CNN, he rejected a warning from the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based defence think-tank, that Iraq retained the expertise to produce nuclear weapons "within a matter of months" if it succeeded in acquiring plutonium or enriched uranium.
"There's a lot of black propaganda being waged against Iraq, to prepare the ground for aggression and war against the Iraqi people. The same as what happened in 1991," Sabri said.
Meanwhile, in a speech to trade union leaders the British prime minister, Tony Blair warned that "action will follow" if Saddam ignored international demands to disarm and admit United Nations weapons inspectors.
Calling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein an "international outlaw," Blair said unless the world faced up the threat from Baghdad, it would sooner or later "erupt and engulf us." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
