The Iraqi foreign minister on Monday accused Secretary of State Colin Powell of a "series of lies" alleging Iraq has not cooperated with U.N. arms monitors, and said he hoped the chief inspectors would deliver an "objective" report later in the day.
Baghdad looks for a U.N. report that "will present facts as they are, that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction," Naji Sabri said. "And we hope the Security Council will lift the criminal sanctions on the Iraqi people."
"The ball is in their court. We have done everything possible to let this country and this region avoid the danger of war by the warmongers in Washington and their ally Tony Blair," Sabri told a news conference in Baghdad.
According to news agencies, Sabri met with reporters just hours before chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. nuclear agency, report to the U.N. Security Council on what their arms teams have found and how well Iraq has cooperated in the first two months of their search.
Sabri said Powell told a "series of lies" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, over the weekend "about Iraq not cooperating over the last 11 years" with U.N. arms inspections.
He noted that U.N. monitors, in their new round of field missions in Iraq, have mounted almost 500 inspections without incident "to offices, guesthouses, mosques, universities, hospitals, factories, military sites."
"How were those things done without Iraqi cooperation?" he asked.
He said of Washington and London, "their aim is to occupy the country ... to control its oil." He referred to U.S. and British leaders as "warmongers" who "export evil to other countries." "They are fond of exporting death and destruction to other parts of the world...They are the ones escalating the situation and making a lot of threats, fabricating lies every day," he said.
Sabri also denied charges by Powell that Iraq had ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and other "terrorist activities." "Powell and the U.S. administration know well that Iraq has no links to these organizations," Sabri said.
On the eve of the interim U.N. inspectors' assessment, President Saddam Hussein convened a joint meeting of his ruling Baath Party's leadership and the Revolution Command Council, Iraq's highest executive body, to discuss what official media called "political conditions." (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
