Iraq blasts ‘little Bush’ war campaign
Around Baghdad, UN experts looking for weapons visited three sites while Iraq said it would soon receive a first batch of Arab and European volunteers ready to act as human shields to try to stave off a US attack.
“The administration of little Bush is launching a mad campaign based on lies and accusations,” the ruling Baath Party newspaper al-Thawra wrote in a front-page editorial directed at President Bush.
In Washington, a US official said the campaign to rid Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of any weapons of mass destruction was nearing an end.
“While we have not given up on disarming Iraq through the United Nations, we are now entering a final phase in how we compel Saddam Hussein to disarm,” the official said.
Saddam and his officials said Iraq was doing all it could to cooperate with the UN, which has scores of inspectors scouring the country for evidence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
Iraq has insisted it has no secret weapons and challenged Washington to send in CIA agents to prove otherwise.
In signs the market believed war was increasingly likely, oil prices climbed close to three-month highs. Gold, seen as a safe store of value in troubled times, headed higher also, boosted by a weaker dollar.
One of at least three sites visited by UN experts yesterday was a closed baby milk plant where the facility chief told reporters later: “It was an ordinary visit and we answered all their questions.”
The chief, Youssef Taher, did not say what banned material the plant had been suspected of producing. He said the plant closed three years ago due to the high cost of producing milk locally compared to importing it.
Though Iraq has pledged full cooperation with the inspectors an Iraqi official said Arab and European volunteers would arrive soon to act as human shields to guard vital and strategic installations from US attacks.
The last time Iraq used people as human shields was in December 1998 when Washington and London launched an extensive air and missile bombing campaign for Iraq’s alleged failure to cooperate with UN arms experts.
The US and Britain have made no secret of their preparations for war to back up demands that Saddam come clean.
Their war of words with Iraq has been fuelled by leaked media reports of a predicted ground war victory in two days and of plans for a joint seaborne invasion on Iraq, a country that has hardly any coast.
Officials say a US build-up could place more than 100,000 troops in the Gulf region in January or February.
A January 27 briefing by UN arms inspectors to the Security Council is widely seen as the next key date.
Israel, a target for Iraqi missiles during the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait, is due to go on high alert from January 15, Israeli media said.
