Saudi Arabia ups pressure on Saddam

SAUDI Arabia has upped the pressure on Baghdad, hinting it may let the US use its bases for a military campaign against Iraq if the attack had UN backing.

But Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said the world clearly wants to see the Iraq crisis resolved without "a single shot" being fired.

The Saudi remarks were made to the UN General Assembly in New York as it wrapped up its fourth day yesterday. Saudi Arabia had previously ruled out the use of its bases for any American attack on Iraq.

US President George W Bush has called on the UN Security Council to pressure Iraqi President Saddam Hussein into allowing the return of UN weapons inspectors to dismantle any Iraqi chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and the capacity to build them.

And if the UN failed to act, Bush made clear, Washington would feel free to attack Iraq on its own.

About 5,000 US military personnel are stationed in Saudi Arabia, most at the remote Prince Sultan Air Base.

In 1991, the country was the main base for a 500,000-strong US-led military force that drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait.

But since then the Saudis have periodically prohibited the use of their soil for strikes against Iraq and, more recently, limited the use of their bases for the US campaign in Afghanistan.

Asked yesterday whether Saudi bases would be available to Washington, foreign minister Saud said if the Security Council adopts a resolution authorising force against Iraq, "everybody is obliged to follow through".

But he said he remained opposed in principle to the use of military force against Iraq or a unilateral American attack. Later, the Saudi minister issued a more complete statement, saying: "All signatories to the UN Charter, including Saudi Arabia, are obligated to abide by the decisions of the Security Council, in particular those taken under Chapter Seven of the Charter."

The UN Charter's Chapter Seven authorises the collective use of force, under the Security Council, in cases of threats to international peace and security.

Saud's statement welcomed Bush's decision to take the case against Iraq to the United Nations, "which will assure consensus in the international community behind a workable plan".

"Whatever threat Iraq poses, it is clear that the will of the international community is to remove that threat in a way that does not require the firing of a single shot or the loss of a single soldier," he said.

Once international consensus is reached, Saud said, Iraq will have to respond or "suffer the consequences".

Saud earlier urged Iraq to quickly allow inspectors back in to head off a Security Council ultimatum. Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri on Saturday said he hoped the crisis could be resolved without a new UN resolution.

In yesterday's round of General Assembly speeches, the Jordanian foreign minister, representing another Arab neighbour of Iraq, also called on Baghdad to implement Security Council resolutions, including the return of UN weapons inspectors.

Compliance would spare the region "the dire consequences" of war, said Jordan's Marwan Muasher.

A decade ago, the Gulf War devastated the economy of Jordan, which was overrun by refugees and lost, in Iraq, a vital trading partner.

Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Sharaa accused much of the world of "blind bias" in dealing with Iraq while ignoring what he called Israel's refusal to abide by international demands.