Posted on 12/15/2002 9:56:17 AM PST by Dallas
BAGHDAD, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz branded U.S. President George W. Bush a warmonger and hypocrite on Sunday as U.N. weapons inspectors revisited several suspect sites.
Aziz said Bush was "driving America to a hostile imperialist policy" that was dangerous for both the United States and the world.
In London, Bush's special envoy for "free Iraqis", Zalmay Khalilzad, said Washington did not want military conflict with Baghdad and urged President Saddam Hussein to comply with United Nations resolutions.
U.N. arms experts scoured two missile sites and a former nuclear research centre, all of them previously inspected, after searching a dozen locations the previous day in their busiest round of inspections so far.
The inspectors returned last month after a four-year absence to check Iraq's claim that it no longer has any long-range missiles or chemical, biological or nuclear arms.
Appearing on the U.S. "Fox News Sunday" programme, Aziz said of Bush: "He's a hypocrite because a true Christian would not be a warmonger, would not push for the destruction of a country and its people."
Predicting there would be "a great amount" of American casualties should the United States invade his country, Aziz reiterated Baghdad's position that it has no weapons of mass destruction, as alleged by Washington.
"They will not find any weapons of mass destruction because simply, we don't have them," he said.
Answering American charges, from Bush and others, that Iraq was not telling the truth in making such claims, Aziz said:
"When you speak about lying, the big liars in this world are the United States of America."
OPPOSITION MEETS
In London, about 300 delegates invited by six Iraqi opposition groups recognised by the United States were meeting for a second day to elect a leadership committee to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq.
The meeting heard calls for a federal Iraq, liberated from the rule of Saddam's Baath Party.
The extent of support for the Iraqi delegates in their homeland is unclear. Saddam has now been in power for 30 years and most of the delegates have been in exile for decades.
On the sidelines of the same conference Khalilzad said: "We don't want war with Iraq. We want Saddam to comply with U.N. resolutions, and freedom and liberty for the Iraqi people."
Khalilzad was appointed Bush's "special envoy and ambassador at large for free Iraqis" earlier this month in a move seen as reinforcing Washington's policy of "regime change" in Iraq.
"We hope war will be avoided. The ball is in Mr Hussein's court," he told Reuters Television News.
SABRI WRITES TO U.N.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri complained to the United Nations about an "undeclared war" being waged by U.S. and British warplanes policing a self-declared "no-fly" zone in the south of the country.
In a letter sent to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Saturday, Sabri said U.S. and British aircraft based in Kuwait had violated Iraqi airspace 1,141 times between November 9 and December 6.
"These daily violations...facilitated by the government of Kuwait, and the barbaric bombing of Iraq's cities and villages, have reached the level of an undeclared war," Sabri wrote.
"The United Nations must take the necessary steps in line with the (U.N.) charter to halt the aggression."
Iraq said U.S. and British warplanes had attacked civilian targets in the southern zone on Saturday. The U.S. military said they had targeted Iraqi air defence facilities after coming under fire.
Iraq does not recognise the no-fly zones set up after the 1991 Gulf War to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south from Saddam's forces.
Meanwhile, Russia's biggest oil firm, LUKOIL, said on Sunday that Moscow's support for the November 8 U.N. resolution had prompted Baghdad to scrap a $3.7 billion deal to develop a huge Iraqi oilfield.
LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov told Reuters in Moscow he saw no U.S. pressure behind the Iraqi decision to terminate the contract on the West Qurna field. He suggested that other Russian and Chinese contracts with Baghdad could be next.
"There were no economic grounds," Alekperov said. "What has been done, I think, is more linked to the reaction to Russia's position on U.N. inspectors. Russia supported actions which seemed clear and logical to the international community."
on the broadcast report by Tony Snow today he stated that Iraq knew what was best for the countries of the region, not the countries themselves........
and said that the Kuwaitis were "psychologically sick" for siding with the American position.
Talk about denial.....
he would make a any Clinton-apologist Democrat proud for sticking up for Saddam Hussein....calling him a great man, a great leader, and not daring to compare him with any other world leader.
What's a BLU-82? Sounds good, whatever it is.
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