International Outlaw Blair Threatens Iraq
Rick - 12.09.2002 01:53
When the peoples of the world see the faces of the families who lost their loved ones in the World Trade Centre on September 11th The bomber of Iraq and Yugoslavia, the invader of
Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, the subverter of Macedonia and Zimbabwe lectures on international law. Ever wonder what the world would look like if Hitler and his Axis allies had won World War II?
Blair labels Saddam "outlaw" but Chirac sticks to international law.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has labeled Saddam Hussein an "outlaw" but France, turning a deaf ear to the bellicose rhetoric coming out of Washington and London, is insisting that international law be adhered to in dealing with Iraq.
Blair, whose hardline position seems to run counter to both British public opinion and many other European leaders, was, in a speech Tuesday, to urge the international community to "do everything we can to stop (Saddam) from using the weapons he has and getting the weapons he wants."
It is time for the international community to stand up for itself in the face of a real threat from an "international outlaw," argues Blair in an address prepared for the British Trades Union Congress which he is attending.
The speech, part of which was released to the press late Monday, marks a sharpening of the war of words with Baghdad following Blair's weekend meetings with US President George W. Bush, whose administration is convinced that Saddam is producing, and plans to use, weapons of mass destruction.
"We cannot stand by and do nothing," the British leader argues in his speech, while noting that the United Nations should deal with the issue as Saddam had consistently flouted its resolutions since arms inspectors were barred from re-entering the country after pulling out in 1998.
In the wake of the US-led campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, to which Britain was a major contributor, Baghdad is unrivaled as the world's worst regime, according to Blair -- a brutal, dictatorial government with a wretched human rights record.
It is a threat to its neighbors, the region and the stability of the world, according to the prime minister.
The excerpts of Blair's speech were released on the heels of a telephone conversation he had with French President Jacques Chirac, who in an interview with the New York Times Monday again made clear his opposition to military action against Iraq.
France intends to take a "constructively contentious" stance vis-a-vis the United States when the 57th UN General Assembly, which is expected to be dominated by debate over US threats to topple President Saddam, opens in New York Thursday.
In his first address to the annual forum, France's new foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, is to follow the line Chirac expounded upon in the New York Times interview.
"The Security Council has decided that Iraq must not have weapons of mass destruction; it did not say that a regime change was necessary there," Chirac told the daily, hitting at a key pillar of the Bush strategy.
"So if the objective is to prevent Iraq from having weapons of mass destruction, we have to go along with what the United Nations has done."
Chirac rejected out of hand Washington's talk of preventive action against Iraq to achieve its stated goal of a change of regime.
"As I've already told President Bush, I have great reservations about this doctrine. As soon as one nation claims the right to take preventive action, other countries will naturally do the same," he said.
"Preventive action can be undertaken if it appears necessary, but it must be taken by the international community, which today is represented by the United Nations Security Council."
Chirac pushed for a Security Council resolution giving Iraq a three-week deadline for admitting UN weapons inspectors "without restrictions or preconditions."
If Saddam rejected their return or hampered their work, a second resolution should be passed on whether to use military force.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard meanwhile stepped up the pressure on the United Nations to act against Iraq, saying a "mountain of evidence" existed to show it has weapons of mass destruction.
The former chief UN weapons inspector, Richard Butler, simultaneously warned that Iraq could produce a nuclear bomb within six months if it acquired core materials on the Russian black market.
Iraq had the knowledge but not the necessary core material such as highly-enriched uranium or plutonium to produce a nuclear bomb, the New York-based former Australian diplomat told Australian radio.
"Were they to somehow get hold of 20 kilograms of core material, say from the Russian mafia, because it's believed that they have got hold of some of the former Soviet stock, then that would be a problem," Butler said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Sukru Sina Gurel said on Tuesday he would make a new effort to persuade Iraq to readmit UN arms inspectors when he meets with his Iraqi counterpart Naji Sabri during the General Assembly session.
But in an interview with the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram published Tuesday, Sabri 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, referring to the Gulf War over Kuwait.
He noted that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which carries out annual inspections despite the absence of UN monitors, had reported Iraq had "no physical ability to build up a nuclear program."
"The truth is there. Let tham ask the IAEA. IAEA said there is no evidence whatsoever to the truth of these things, of these allegations," he said.
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