Saddam: US wants to control oil

2002-09-02 21:48

Hassan Hafidh

Baghdad - US military action against Iraq would aim to control Middle East oil, the world's largest reserves, the official Iraqi News Agency quoted President Saddam Hussein as saying on Monday.

"Why all this American animosity against Iraq?" Saddam said during a meeting with a Belarus official.

"Because America believes that if it destroyed Iraq, it would control the oil of the Middle East, which makes up 65% of world oil reserves.

"And if it controls oil, it will set the price it likes and export it to whoever it likes and in the quantities it chooses," he said.

Saddam's remarks came during an audience with Belarus Deputy Prime Minister Leonid Kozik, who delivered a message from his president, Alexander Lukashenko.

Saudi Arabia has the world's largest oil reserves, followed by Iraq.

US divided

US President George W Bush has said he wants to remove Saddam from power, accusing him of developing weapons of mass destruction.

But Bush has insisted no decision has been taken on military action. Recent comments from US officials have shown divisions over policy towards Iraq.

Iraq appeared to signal a softer stance on UN weapons inspectors who have been barred from the country since they left on the eve of a US-British bombing campaign in December 1998.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said in Johannesburg, while attending the Earth Summit, that Baghdad had not ruled out a return of the inspectors.

Aziz said he would meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the summit on Tuesday to discuss the crisis in relations between Baghdad and the United States.

Saddam said the European stance opposing the US military strike was not because these countries wanted to show solidarity with Iraq, but because they realised the attack would harm their interests in the region.

EU foreign ministers tried to paper over their differences on Iraq at a weekend meeting in Denmark by reaffirming their support for UN-led efforts to secure the return of weapons inspectors to Baghdad.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said such a step would not be enough.

But Secretary of State Colin Powell seemed to differ with Cheney. Powell told the BBC on Sunday that Washington wanted the weapons inspectors to return as a "first step" to solving the crisis.

Yemen wants end to UN sanctions

And in Sanaa, the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told a visiting Iraqi minister that US strike on Iraq would undermine regional security and stability.

"Changing a regime in any country is up to that country's people, and the use of force against Iraq would undermine security and stability, and heighten tension" in the Middle East region, he said during a meeting with Iraqi Culture Minister Hamed Yussef Humadi on Monday.

The Yemeni leader also urged the international community to intervene to secure an end to UN sanctions imposed on Iraq since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the official Saba news agency reported.

Saleh later told an Iranian envoy, Ayatollah Ahmed Janati, chairperson of a top constitutional watchdog body, that Islamic nations should "close ranks in order to thwart those who seek to drive a wedge between brethren," Saba reported.

He was apparently referring to a sharp attack on Iran by Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who charged on Saturday that there was no "single episode in history when the Persians (Iranians) have co-operated with the Arabs against the Zionists."

Iran, which fought a devastating 1980-1988 war with Iraq, Monday filed a formal complaint with Baghdad over Ramadan's tirade, Iranian state radio reported. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA