Aziz: Attacks are criminal
Iraq, Politics, 12/18/1998

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz continued Iraq's strong condemnation of this week's US - British military attacks against Iraq, repeatedly referring to the attacks as "criminal."

Aziz, speaking at a press conference today, said, "What we are witnessing now is not a military conflict," but a "criminal" violation of the UN charter and "a crime against the Arabs, the Moslems, and the whole world."

He said the attacks are not about weapons of mass destruction or the report by UNSCOM chief Richard Butler -- which he said was "written to justify the aggression" -- but to draw attention away from Clinton's visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, which Aziz characterized as a failure, and from another incident he said he did not want to address.

He said there was "a coordination by the US government and Butler about the content of the report and the timing of the report," accusing Butler of withdrawing inspectors from Iraq before consulting UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and before consulting the UN Security Council.

Aziz said that the UNSCOM was provided on Sunday to the White House, two days before it was submitted to the UN Security Council. Aziz added that the fact that the attacks began on Wednesday while the UN Security Council was already "in session" about the report proved that they were not related to the report.

Aziz said the attacks included civilian targets such as radio, tv stations, the oil refinery in Basra, presidential sites which he said are "guest houses," sites that had been previously inspected and cleared of storing any forbidden materials and other non-military sites proved that the attacks are not about weapons of mass destruction. He said that the sites hit yesterday such as the ministry of defense have been visited many times by the UN inspection teams and had nothing expect administrative functions. He said the US struck it because "it is one of the monuments of Baghdad."

He said the US had a "deliberated, precipitated wish" to carry out "criminal aggression against Iraq." Aziz added, "The real objective of this aggression is to show that the United States is the sole super power in this world," demonstrate US arrogance and readiness to impose its will on other nations for for its "greedy purposes." He said this is a result of a "substantive and dangerous change" in the US mood, and due to the "Zionist clique" surrounding Clinton.

He said "what we are witnessing is not a military attack" but that the current attacks are intended to destroy sites that are valuable to the Iraqi people.

He said that the US and Britain have no respect for Ramadan as a Muslim holy month as they alleged, and that the real reason for wanting to stop the attacks is "the reality (is) that the resources they could assemble for this is limited" and "they cannot throw 200 missiles every day" continuously as they did in the Gulf war.

He said Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair "lied flagrantly" during a similar crisis in February in which military action was averted because of Kofi Annan's intervention the Iraqi deputy prime minister stated. Aziz said, the two leaders lied about the size of presidential sites and about stockpiles of weapons and means to produce weapons at those sites, but the sites were much smaller than had been alleged and nothing was found during UNSCOM inspections. Now the two are "repeating the same lies," Aziz stated.

Previous Stories:
  Iraqi president issues statement on US - British air strikes   (12/18/1998)
  UNSCOM's return to Iraq after attacks uncertain   (12/17/1998)
  Iraq slams US attacks and questions significance of violations   (12/17/1998)
  The US and UK strike against Iraq   (12/17/1998)

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