Trip to Baghdad Flies in Face of UN Sanctions, by Kim Sengupta, November 11, 2000
The first unauthorised flight from Britain to Iraq since the Gulf War arrived in Baghdad yesterday in defiance of the British and American Governments, plunging the issue of UN sanctions into confusion. The secretly organised flight is the first successful journey from either Britain or America, the two countries most opposed to easing sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime.The organisers, including George Galloway, a Labour MP, claimed a victory last night after the Foreign Office in London, which has always maintained that such missions were illegal, appeared to concede that the flight exploited a loophole in the regulations.