Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Tuesday he had information that Iraq recently transferred weapons of mass destruction to Syria while Iraq expressed confidence it will come clear after UN inspections.
”There is information we are verifying. But we are certain that Iraq has recently moved chemical or biological weapons into Syria,” Sharon told the private Channel Two television station.
”Saddam Hussein wanted to hide his weapons, and I think that the Americans know that,” said the Israeli leader, who has strongly backed US threats to topple the Iraqi leader’s regime over its alleged weapons off mass destruction programmes.
He added that ”Iraqi experts and scientists are working in the nuclear industry in Libya” and recalled that Israeli forces had recently arrested members of a Palestinian militant group in the West Bank who had allegedly received training in Iraq.
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein said in a nationwide broadcast message he was confident the outcome of the inspection operations ”will be a big shock to the United States and will expose all American lies, if things remain on a technical and professional course with no hidden agendas.”
”Then the world will discover the falsehood of the US claims and see the real intentions of wickedness and perfidy harbored by US officials,” Saddam Hussein said.
Both the United States and Britain, two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, have already said gaps in Iraq’s arms declaration were a ”material breach” of the resolution, which could trigger military action.
The Iraqi leader also referred to the ”growing” military threat against his regime and repeated Baghdad’s allegation that Washington and its allies — ”the forces of evil” — were really after the nation’s oil wealth.
”It is in this context the American-Zionist campaign against Iraq is being launched, while the tone of a threatened, large-scale military aggression against our peace-loving people is growing louder,” he said.
UN weapons inspectors would find no evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear arms program if they ”rid themselves of pressures put on them by the United States, Britain and Zionism.”
As talk of war built a head of steam, a top Israeli army commander said the United States would attack Iraq at the start of February.
Major General Aharon Zeevi, chief of army intelligence, told a parliamentary committee he expected war to begin just after the US administration reviews a UN weapons inspectors report, due to be submitted by January 27, according to the daily newspaper Haaretz.
Meanwhile, Baghdad reveled in Monday’s shooting down of an unmanned US drone in the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. Ruling Baath Party official Saad Qassem Hammudi that the ”heroic operation” that led to the shooting down of the drone aircraft was just a taste of things to come for any invaders of its territory.
”It’s a message that any assault against Iraq will not be the picnic they imagine,” he said, adding the operation demonstrated Iraq’s ability to stand up to sophisticated technology.
Washington has already deployed 65,000 troops to the Gulf region, with another 50 000 due in January in a presumed built up to enforce a UN Security Council disarmament resolution.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz saw it from a different perspective.
”This is a strategic buildup for a war reaching the level of a world war and targeting … the entire Arab nation,” he declared.
Meanwhile Saudi Arabia, the United States’ chief US ally in the Gulf, denied reports it had advised Saddam to step down in order to avert a US-led war and again said it would not take part in military action against Baghdad.
”We have not asked the Iraqi leadership to step down, maybe other Arab state did,” Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a press conference.
He declined to answer whether his country, where some 5 000 US troops are based, would offer Saddam political asylum if he quit power, but reiterated his country’s position that it would not take part in military action to remove him.
”If the UN Security Council sanctions war against Iraq, this requires cooperation by all countries … But this does not mean all countries must take part in military action. Obviously, we will not take part in military actions,” Prince Saud said.
His position was in sharp contrast to that of Turkey, another of Iraq’s neighbors.
A Nato ally, Ankara will allow the United States to use several of its air bases in the event of war in Iraq, particularly the Incirlik base that proved strategically vital in the 1991 Gulf War.
But Turkey remained adamant about not allowing the massing of US troops on its soil.
And, in a satellite broadcast aired in Cairo, an Iraqi official reiterated his accusation that the United States was determined to undermine the UN inspection mission in order to implement its own agenda.
”The Americans know that the inspections will not turn out in their favour,” said General Amer al-Saadi. ”They have their own agenda … the occupation and control of oil resources and control of the region … We are at the head of the list, and others will successively follow,” he said.
However, also in Cairo a UN official said Washington would not have the right to withdraw UN weapons inspectors if it goes it alone and attacks Iraq without the approval of the world body.
”The United States does not have the right to withdraw the teams without a Security Council resolution because the inspectors went into Iraq in accordance with a Security Council resolution,” Jayantha Dhanapala, the UN undersecretary for disarmament affairs, told reporters. – Sapa-AFP