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December 30, 2002 News http://www.aljazeerah.info |
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Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
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Sharon gives army free hand to
kill -
As Sharon ordered the army to step up killings, the press revealed
details of the latest draft of a “road map” for Middle East peace,
stressing there was little new in the US-backed plan set to be adopted
after Israeli elections in January. Israeli soldiers fired toward Palestinian protesters in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip yesterday, killing an 11-year-old boy and wounding a
cameraman on assignment for Associated Press Television News, witnesses
said. The boy, Abdel Karim Salameh, was killed in the morning by a live
bullet in the head, said the director of the town’s hospital, Dr. Ahmed
Abu Baker. A second boy, also 11, was injured by a rubber-coated steel
pellet in the leg, the director said. The boys were among a group of students walking home from school after
end-of-semester exams, witnesses said. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, meanwhile, said troops have
arrested more than 1,200 Palestinians in the past two months in what he
described as an unprecedented campaign against suspected Palestinians.
Palestinians say Israel is trying to scuttle any chance of a truce with
its stepped-up raids. The boys’ death came just a day after a nine-year-old Palestinian
girl was shot dead in the southern Gaza Strip. Nine Palestinians were killed last Thursday alone by Israeli forces,
while on Friday night two Palestinians killed four young Israeli men in a
settlement near Hebron before being slain themselves. Two Israeli soldiers were wounded when Palestinians fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at a patrol in the southern Gaza Strip in an
overnight attack claimed by armed wing of Hamas. Meanwhile, Sharon said Friday night’s attack on the Jewish settlement
of Otniel justified the army’s controversial policy of systematically
tracking down and killing suspected Palestinians. Sharon was responding to a warning by Attorney General Elyakim
Rubinstein, who reportedly said Israel must act with “utmost caution”
when carrying out the so-called “targeted killings” of Palestinians. Last month a senior military official said the army should give
priority to trying to arrest Palestinians rather than kill them.As the
violence looked set to escalate after weeks of relative calm, the
Jerusalem Post revealed details of the latest draft of the Middle East
peace “road map” drawn up by top diplomats of the so-called quartet,
made up of the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia. It said that little new was presented in the draft, whose finalization
the United States has delayed, at Israel’s urging, until after the
Jewish state’s Jan. 28 elections. It said in the first stage, from January to June 2003, Israeli
commitments would include a total freeze on Jewish settlements in the West
Bank and the dismantling of outposts built since March 2000, a pullback to
positions held before the uprising began in September 2000 and an end to
attacks on civilians and the demolition of buildings. On the Palestinian side, the plan calls for elections as soon as
possible, security and political reforms, fiscal transparency and a
“visible effort to arrest, disrupt, restrain terrorists.” The second phase, from June to December next year, would include a
quartet-mediated conference to establish a Palestinian state with
provisional borders, while the Palestinians appoint a prime minister,
ratify a constitution and reinforce reforms. In stage three, lasting a year from January 2004, both sides would
attend a conference to thrash out thorny final status issues such as
borders, Jewish settlements, Jerusalem and the question of Palestinian
refugees. The paper said that moving from stages two to three would depend on
whether the quartet judged both sides had fulfilled their commitments. The daily added that the implementation was not on a step-by-step
basis, as Israel had hoped, but calls for both sides to undertake their
commitments in parallel, which Israel fears will mean it makes concessions
while the Palestinians drag their feet.
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US plans to secure Iraqi oil
fields after invasion -
WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD, 30 December 2002 — The United States plans to
secure Iraqi oil fields if it invades and is looking into the possibility
of ramping up oil production beyond the UN oil-for-food program to pay for
post-war reconstruction, Bush administration officials said yesterday. “The oil fields are the property of the Iraqi people,” US Secretary
of State Colin Powell told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And if the coalition forces go into those oil fields, we would want
to protect those fields and make sure they are used to benefit the people
of Iraq and are not destroyed or damaged by the failing regime on the way
out the door,” he said. Powell warned that the standoff with Iraq cannot “go on
indefinitely” and Washington was positioning itself to take action. “I think that this can’t go on indefinitely,” Powell said, adding
the United States would wait to get additional reports from UN chief
weapons inspector Hans Blix before taking any decisions. “It’s a
situation we are monitoring closely,” he said. “We are positioning
ourselves. In another development, an AFP journalist on the scene reported
yesterday Turkish troops were on the move near the border with Iraq and
are now very close to the only regular crossing point between the two
nations. A first convoy of around 80 to 90 Turkish army vehicles arrived
near the border crossing of Habur in southeastern Turkey on Saturday while
others arrived yesterday, the correspondent said. Meanwhile, US and British warplanes yesterday attacked two Iraqi
military radar sites after Iraqi forces moved the facilities into the
southern “no-fly” zone, the US military said. The US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the
region, said Western warplanes used precision-guided weapons to target the
Iraqi facilities near Ad Diwaniyah, about 75 miles south of Baghdad. An unidentified plane flew over Baghdad at midday (0900 GMT) yesterday,
apparently breaking the sound barrier over the Iraqi capital, in the
second such incident in a month. A loud bang, probably the noise of the
aircraft breaking the sound barrier, was heard across Baghdad, where
residents are already bracing for a possible US strike. UN arms experts, meanwhile, searched three suspect sites in Iraq
yesterday. More than 100 UN weapons inspectors are now in Iraq, but the
200 searches they have carried out since Nov. 27 have apparently uncovered
no trace of the chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs
Washington insists Iraq is pursuing. In Cairo, a top representative of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
said all Gulf states “oppose any military action against” Iraq and
favor a diplomatic solution to the showdown over its alleged weapons of
mass destruction. (Agencies)
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Bush’s war on terror faces
mounting criticism -
PARIS, 30 December 2002 — At home and abroad, US President George W.
Bush’s “war on terror” was facing mounting criticism yesterday over
fears that fundamental human rights and freedoms were being eroded. Actors, writers, lawyers, politicians, and millions of ordinary people
worldwide have in recent weeks all questioned the no-holds-barred US
policy which many fear will be counterproductive. Huge anti-war demonstrations have taken place in cities across the
globe and more are planned for the new year, including a major one in
Washington on Jan. 18. Spain’s top anti-terror judge became the latest to add his voice to
the growing chorus of critics, warning yesterday of “the risk of a false
system of security being put in place to the detriment of freedoms and
rights. “The case of terrorists held in Guantanamo (the US base in
Cuba), Afghanistan and Pakistan proves that security is trumping every
other principle of justice or rights,” said Baltasar Garzon said. Garzon, who has fought against Basque separatists in Spain, made a
world name for himself when he led international efforts to prosecute
former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for war crimes. In Germany, where anti-US sentiment is at its highest level since the
euro-missile crisis of the 1980s, Nobel prize-winning author Guenter Grass
called Bush’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States as
“truly dangerous” and a major threat to world peace. He compared the US president to a Shakespearean character who wants
only to appear before his father, a dying king, and tell him: “Look, I
have accomplished what you wanted.” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
narrowly squeaked home in recent elections after saying his country would
not join any US-led strike on Iraq. That declaration angered Washington, straining relations already
damaged by comments from a former justice minister comparing Bush’s
methods on Iraq to those of Hitler. Nearer home, Bush faces opposition
from Hollywood to Havana. Film and rock stars have protested his policy in
Iraq and human rights groups his treatment of Al-Qaeda and Taleban
prisoners. US star and filmmaker Sean Penn led Hollywood’s dissent with a
high-profile three-day visit to Baghdad earlier this month. Penn may have
taken the most militant stand, but other stars, such as Susan Sarandon,
Tim Robbins, Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, have also lined up
against the Texan president. The 65-year-old Redford wrote to Bush in an open letter published in
the Los Angeles Times, attacking his environmental policy and suggesting
that Washington should not intervene in Iraq. Redford’s public hostility
came after a constellation of other top Hollywood celebrities appeared at
anti-war demonstrations or signed peace petitions in recent weeks. Martin Sheen, who plays the US president in the hit television series
“The West Wing,” branded Bush’s campaign against Iraq a “personal
feud,” alluding to the 1991 Gulf War waged by Bush’s father against
Saddam. (AFP)
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Powell ups pressure on Iraq, Saudi Arabia to let US use bases Jordan Times, 12/30/02
- WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned on Sunday that the standoff against Iraq “can't go on indefinitely,” as more signs emerged that military preparations for an attack are entering their final phase. “I think that this can't go on indefinitely,” Powell told NBC's Meet the Press, adding that the United States would wait to get additional reports from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix before taking any decisions. “It's a situation we are monitoring closely,” he added. Powell insisted US President George W. Bush wanted a peaceful solution but that US troops were prepared to take action against Baghdad. “We are taking prudent actions, positioning our forces so that they will be ready to do whatever might be required,” he said on Fox News Sunday. Powell was speaking as reports emerged that Saudi Arabia had agreed to let US forces use air bases and a key command centre on its soil, in an apparent U-turn by the kingdom's rulers that would boost a US-led campaign both logistically and diplomatically. Powell, widely seen as the Bush administration's most cautious, multilateralist voice, also moved to calm the snowballing crisis over North Korea's relaunched nuclear programme that threatens to divert US attention and resources from Iraq. “We've said it repeatedly, the president has said it repeatedly,” Powell said in a separate interview with ABC television. “Nobody's going to attack North Korea.” The aircraft carrier USS George Washington and another carrier have been ordered to prepare to leave for the Gulf within four days, according to US television reports aired over the weekend. The Washington Post newspaper said US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had ordered a significant deployment of ground forces, combat aircraft and logistics support to the region — usually the last phase of war preparations. An unidentified plane flew over Baghdad on Sunday, emitting a loud boom as it apparently broke the sound barrier in the second such incident in a month. Some 15,000 US troops are already based in neighbouring Kuwait, where Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed Al Fahd Al Sabah said on Sunday he was ready to implement an emergency plan to guarantee continued oil production during a war against Iraq. “I cannot go into the details of this plan, but I can guarantee that production will continue, exports will continue and production of fuel needed locally and for export will continue,” Sheikh Ahmed told reporters. Qatari Health Minister Hajar Ahmed Hajar on Sunday denied reports that a recent decision to draft in foreign doctors and nurses was linked to war preparations. He was speaking after newspaper Asharq Al Awsat reported that 350 Bosnian doctors and nurses with experience in treating war wounds had been recruited in readiness for violent reprisals by Iraq once the war starts. Washington built a new command centre in Qatar and has been preparing to coordinate military action from there, after Saudi Arabia indicated it would not allow US forces to launch their attack from its soil, as they did in the 1991 Gulf War. But Riyadh appeared on Sunday to have reversed that position, as the New York Times reported that US commanders have been given private assurances that they will be allowed to run an air war from a sophisticated command centre at Prince Sultan Air Base outside the Saudi capital. “I firmly believe the Saudis will give us all the cooperation we need, and every indication I have is we're getting pretty much what we've asked for,” Air Force Chiefs of Staff John Jumper told the newspaper. As the war clouds gathered, there was anxiety in other Middle Eastern countries about the economic effect of a regional war. Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher has warned that the region faced a bleak 2003 if Washington launched a war on Iraq amid continuing Israeli violence against the Palestinians. And Egypt forecast that revenues from shipping through the Suez Canal — its number two foreign exchange earner — would fall by 10 per cent in the event of a US-led war. In Iraq, UN arms experts began their 30th day of inspections, visiting two sites in and near Baghdad, while others examined a list of scientists provided by the authorities on Saturday. “The list contains over 500 names in the chemical, biological, nuclear and missile areas,” inspectors' spokesman Hiro Ueki said Saturday. The UN had given Baghdad until Tuesday to provide a complete list of scientists currently and formerly involved in its chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, gathered top officials for consultations. The state-run media gave no indication of what had been discussed. As speculation abounded over the likely date for a war to begin, London's Sunday Express tabloid said President Bush had warned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the campaign would be launched on Feb. 21. Sharon's office categorically denied the report. Powell's comments on North Korea came after Pyongyang's state media warned on Sunday that confrontation with the United States could not be avoided as tensions escalated over its decision to relaunch its nuclear programme in breach of a 1994 agreement with Washington and to expel UN monitors from a key nuclear site. Tension between the two sides had risen further after Defence Secretary Rumsfeld warned last Monday that the US had the wherewithal to go to war against Iraq and North Korea at the same time.
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Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian
schoolboy, attack cameraman Jordan Times, 12/30/02
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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli occupation soldiers fired towards Palestinian protesters in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing an 11-year-old boy and wounding a cameraman on assignment for Associated Press Television News. Israel's attorney general, meanwhile, told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Sunday's weekly cabinet that targeted killings of suspected Palestinian fighters should be used only as a last resort. The comments came in response to reports that Sharon decided to order such killings in larger numbers. In the West Bank town of Tulkarem, occupation soldiers killed an 11-year-old boy, Abdel Karim Salameh, by a live bullet in the head on Sunday morning, said the director of the town's hospital, Ahmed Abu Baker. A second boy, also 11, was injured by a rubber-coated steel pellet in the leg, the director said. The boys were among a group of students walking home from school after end-of-semester exams, witnesses said. The Israeli military claimed soldiers used “nonlethal means” against the boys. The army considers rubber-coated steel pellets nonlethal, though they have been fatal at closer range. Sunday's death was the second of a Palestinian child in two days. On Saturday, a 9-year-old girl was killed as she stood outside her home in a Gaza refugee camp. In Gaza on Sunday, about 150 Palestinians and foreign supporters marched towards an Israeli military checkpoint to protest restrictions on Palestinian movement. When the supporters were about 100 metres from the checkpoint, soldiers fired to keep back the marchers, said the cameraman, Tamer Ziara, 20, who was covering the protest for APTN. Ziara said that at the time, he was filming the banners of the foreigners and was hit in the back of the head, apparently by a ricochet. Doctors at Rafah Hospital said Ziara was in stable condition with a gash on the back of the head and would remain in the hospital for three days. Capt. Sharon Feingold, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military, alleged soldiers opened fire because they felt “endangered by the crowd.” The protest took place at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the Mowasi area, which is close to the illegal Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Katif. Mowasi has come under especially severe travel restrictions in the past 27 months because of its proximity to the settlements. Residents can pass through checkpoints only with special permits, and Mowasi is off-limits to visitors. In occupied Jerusalem, Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein told Sharon at the start of the Cabinet meeting that while he considers so-called targeted killings of Palestinian activists legal, they should be used only as a last resort, according to a government official. Rubinstein was responding to reports that Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz decided to step up such killings following a weekend attack on the West Bank settlement of Otniel. Throughout the fighting the erupted in Sept. 2000, Israeli occupation troops have killed scores of Palestinians the Jewish state claims they were involved in such attacks — a practice that has been strongly denounced by the international community, including the US. The government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied that Sharon ordered more targeted killings, saying the prime minister asked the military to step up arrest raids to intensify pressure on Palestinian fighters. Mofaz said Sunday that more than 1,200 suspects have been arrested in the past two months in what he described as “an unprecedented campaign”. Palestinian officials have accused Israel of trying to scuttle Egyptian-led truce efforts. The Egyptian intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, has been meeting with leaders of Palestinian factions in Cairo to persuade them to halt attacks on Israelis. Sources close to the talks said the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements have promised Suleiman to try calm the situation, provided Israel halts targeted killings of Palestinian activists. Israel has refused to make such a promise, saying it could not agree to “a partial moratorium on attacks that excludes the West Bank and Gaza”. Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath said Sunday that Egypt would convene all Palestinian factions for a meeting in Cairo in the first week of January to try to work out a joint political platform. Armed with such a program, the Palestinian Authority would try to negotiate a two-stage truce that would first take hold in Israel and — after an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian towns and cities — would extend to the West Bank and Gaza, Shaath said.
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Egypt invites Palestinian groups for
landmark talks Jordan Times, 12/30/02
- CAIRO (R) — Egypt has invited key Palestinian factions to convene landmark talks and forge a unified stand on sensitive issues such as a halt to suicide bombings in Israel, an Egyptian government source said on Sunday. Egypt has been a key Arab-Israeli broker since its own 1979 peace treaty with the Jewish state, but talks in Cairo including all key Palestinian factions would be the first of their kind. "Egypt has invited (President Yasser Arafat's faction) Fateh, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to try to minimise differences and agree on one, unified stance," the official told Reuters. Fateh said on Sunday it accepted the invitation, and Hamas said it agreed in principle, but it was not immediately clear if the others would attend. No date has been set for the talks. Analysts say the proposed meeting could be part of efforts to calm one regional conflict amid fears that a war against Iraq could unleash dangerous instability in the entire Middle East. The Egyptian official said the talks would address issues like borders for a future Palestinian state, refugees and a halt to suicide bombings within Israel, not "continued resistance inside occupied land," referring to the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have carried out suicide bombings which killed scores of people, reject a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The DFLP and PFLP are Marxist organisations which are battling against Israeli occupation. Fateh and Hamas, which recently held bilateral talks on ironing out differences in Cairo, were the first to comment on the Egyptian invitation. Palestinian officials confirmed a Fateh team led by Mahmoud Abbas — who is widely seen as a potential successor to Arafat and is better known as Abu Mazen — would attend the meeting. One senior Palestinian official said Egypt was working on "formulating an initiative or a paper calling for the cessation of all military actions on both sides." An official of Hamas in Damascus said there was an agreement in principle to accept Egypt's invitation, but explicitly ruled out negotiating over a halt to attacks. Over the last several weeks, Egyptian officials have held preparatory meetings with individual delegations from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the DFLP and the PFLP, all of which are considered "terrorist" groups by Israel. Washington includes Hamas, Jihad and the PFLP on its list of "foreign terrorist organisations."
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Israeli elections panel allows
extremist to run Jordan Times, 12/30/02
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TEL AVIV (R) — Israel's elections committee decided on Sunday to allow an ex-leader of the outlawed Jewish militant group Kach to run in the January general election. It voted 21-18 against the request of Attorney General Eliakim Rubinstein to disqualify Baruch Marzel's candidacy on the ticket of the fringe ultra-nationalist Herut Party. "The full election committee decided that Marzel will not be disqualified," parliament spokesman Giora Pordes said. No reason was given but Pordes said the right-wing majority on the 42-member committee tilted the vote against the wishes of Rubinstein and committee chairman Judge Michael Cheshin. Israel outlawed Kach in 1994 after a Kach supporter shot and killed 29 Muslim worshippers at a West Bank mosque. Marzel was a protege of Kach founder Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was slain by an Egyptian gunman in New York in 1990.
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Iraq makes US pull carpet on Prince Charles
visit — report Jordan Times, 12/30/02
- LONDON (AFP) — Prince Charles has dropped plans to visit the United States because the White House, apparently unhappy with his views on Iraq, has signalled that he would not be welcome, the Mail on Sunday newspaper reported. In a front-page report, it said that “senior figures in the Bush administration” had indicated that it would be “very unhelpful” for the trip to proceed due to the prince's reported concern that a war would lead to a dangerous rift between the West and the Muslim world. “A week-long tour was in the diary for February or March 2003,” it quoted a senior British government official as saying. “But the prince has been politely informed that his views on the current (Iraq) crisis might not go down well.” The Mail on Sunday added that the Foreign Office is concerned that a US visit by the heir to the British throne might be used by anti-war activists to drive a wedge between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's strongest ally on Iraq. A Foreign Office spokesman was quoted in the newspaper as saying that it could not confirm Charles' overseas travel plans “so far ahead of time.”
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Saud visits Sudan, vows to
boost ties with Khartoum Arab News
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KHARTOUM, 30 December 2002 — Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal arrived here yesterday promising to promote economic and political cooperation with Sudan. “This visit will focus on the domain of cooperation in the political, economic and investment fields,” Prince Saud said after he was greeted at the airport by his Sudanese counterpart Mustafa Osman Ismail. “Although Arab concerns are high in every Arab encounter, this visit will be wholly devoted to bilateral relations and means of development,” he said in his arrival statement. Prince Saud was also to meet Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and First Vice President Ali Osman Taha, the Sudanese foreign minister said. Ismail made an undeclared visit to Saudi Arabia in early November with Interior Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein after which he announced an agreement to cooperate in fighting drugs and crime. During a visit here in September, Saudi investor Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal said he had decided to invest heavily in Sudan after agreeing to build a five-star hotel in Khartoum and clinching a deal to export livestock. (AFP)
BAGHDAD: A key piece in assuring victory in
any war against Iraq appeared to have fallen into place on Sunday with a
report that Saudi Arabia has made a U-turn and will allow the United
States to use its military facilities in the event of war.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh blamed
“violence and extremism” for the killing of a senior Yemeni leftist
politician by a lone gunman at an Islamic political party’s congress
Saturday.
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Jamali
in bid to reunify PML -
- US gets impatient over Iraq as war clouds gather Khaleej Times, 12/30/02 -
BAGHDAD - The United States warned the stand-off with Iraq cannot be allowed to drag on, while UN arms inspectors pursued on Monday the hunt for banned weapons at seven sites as war clouds piled up. US Secretary of State Colin Powell may be the leading dove in the Bush administration but he suggested Washington was losing patience as arms inspectors plod on with little apparent breakthrough. "I think that this can't go on indefinitely," Powell told NBC television. Nonetheless the United States would wait to hear from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix before taking any decisions. "It's a situation we are monitoring closely," he said. Blix is due to present a first report on the inspections process at the United Nations on January 27. Powell insisted US President George W. Bush wanted a peaceful solution but said that US troops were deploying to be prepared to move against Baghdad. "We are taking prudent actions, positioning our forces so that they will be ready to do whatever might be required," he told Fox News. On the ground, UN disarmament inspectors swooped on at least seven suspect sites testing their expertise in biological, nuclear and missile warfare. The total number of inspectors, who returned to the hunt for Iraq's weapons on November 25 after a four-year break, now stands at 110 -- 100 from UNMOVIC and 10 from the IAEA. With a massive buildup of US forces underway on its doorstep, Iraq called Sunday for effective support and concrete action from Arab and Muslim nations to help resist US threats to invade. "What Iraq asks (of Arab and Muslim countries) is concrete action and an effective stance and not calls" to solve the crisis, said Babel, a tabloid run by President Saddam Hussein's elder son Uday. The daily said the Arabs should "stand up against the US policy of hegemony," and the world should ask the United States "to start by ridding the Zionist entity of its weapons of mass destruction to give credibility" to thedemands it is making on Iraq. The government's Al-Jumuriyah daily added that the Arabs should "stand in the same trench as Iraq and state that any aggression against Iraq would be considered an aggression against all Arab states." The Arabs should also "stop making shameful statements justifying the American military presence in the Gulf." Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia denied reports of a secret promise to make its airspace and bases available for use by the United States in the event of war against Iraq. "This report is untrue. The kingdom's position on this issue has been very clear from the start," Deputy Defense Minister Prince Abdulrahman bin Abdul Aziz told Okaz daily. The New York Times on Sunday quoted senior US military officials as saying Riyadh would make its airspace, air bases and an important operations center available to the United States in a possible war with Iraq. Saudi Arabia was the main staging area for American forces in the 1991 Gulf war, but conflicting public statements by top Saudi officials over the past several months have cast doubt on Saudi Arabia's assistance against Iraq.American commanders told the Times they have been given private assurances in recent weeks that they will be allowed to run an air war against Iraq from a sophisticated command center at Prince Sultan Air Base outside Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital -- the same command post that ran the air campaign in Afghanistan. Powell also told NBC that any invasion force would take special care to protect Iraq's oilfields "and make sure that they are used to benefit the people of Iraq and are not destroyed or damaged by a failing regime on the way out the door." The assurance followed an assessment by US intelligence officials that the Iraqi military was likely to resort to a "scorched earth" strategy, in the event of an invasion. Meanwhile in Beijing, China and Germany insisted Monday that a peaceful solution be found to the Iraq crisis. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, in discussions with vice president Hu Jintao, agreed on the need to support the UN inspections process, a German government spokeswoman said. "The main aim is to implement UN Resolution 1441. They agreed that as Resolution 1441 said, one should try to resolve the problem in Iraq without a war. "They agreed Mr. Blix has to be supported and everything must be done to implement Resolution 1441." Resolution 1441 threatens serious consequences -- taken to mean war -- if Iraq fails to cooperate totally with the weapons inspectors. - AFP
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