Iraqi Diplo Tails Veep in Mideast

New York Daily News ^ | 3/19/02 | Corky Siemaszko

[kattracks]

Iraqi diplomats have shadowed Vice President Cheney throughout his 10-day Mideast tour, trying to counter the U.S. argument that Saddam Hussein must go.

When Cheney arrived in Jordan last week at the start of his campaign to win support for a strike against the Iraqi leader, he was one day behind Iraq's No. 2, Ezzat Ibrahim.

As Cheney's plane took off from Egypt, Ibrahim's was preparing to land.

And when Cheney arrived in Qatar over the weekend to enlist the Persian Gulf state in an anti-Saddam coalition, Ibrahim was hot on his heels.

Ibrahim and other Iraqi diplomats shadowed Cheney as the vice president traveled through Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The Iraqis, still bitter about the 1991 Persian Gulf War, did not follow Cheney into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

While Cheney tried to stitch together an alliance, the Iraqis tried to unravel it with dire warnings that an attack on Baghdad would destabilize the entire region.

"We think all Arab countries without exception are now convinced that an aggression against Iraq ... will be a prelude to an aggression against other Arab countries," Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said yesterday.

President Bush has accused Saddam of trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. He has demanded that Iraq allow United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country to finish defanging Iraq's military might.

Arab nations also have been pushing Baghdad to allow the resumption of weapons inspections to avoid another regional war.

Corky Siemaszko