Islam Online- News Section

عربي

Home

News

Shari`ah

Counseling:

Search »

Advanced Search »

IOL Radio: Listen & Share

Obama & Muslim World

2009: EU Muslim Family Year

Palestine Holocaust
Memorial Museum

World in Pictures

IOL Mobile

» Special Pages

Services

Iraq Invites U.S. to Inspect 2 Sites, Basra Airport Bombed

Anti-U.S. demonstrators in front of the U.S. Embassy in Manila

BAGHDAD, October 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The head of Iraq’s armament program invited the U.S. administration Thursday, October 10, to immediately inspect two sites where Washington claims Baghdad has resumed its “prohibited” weapons program.

“The American administration can send whoever it wants to visit the An-Nasr and Al-Furat sites, which it suspects of being used to produce weapons of mass destruction,” said Abdel Tawab Mulla Howeish, also military industries minister.

“If the American administration wants to see the two sites, we urge them to inspect them immediately,” Howeish told a press conference.

The two sites were mentioned in the dossier British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently released on Iraq’s arsenal, while U.S. President George W. Bush showed a satellite photograph of Al-Furat in a speech this week in which he threatened to disarm Baghdad by force, if necessary, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Howeish said sites “used to produce metal and molded structures for cement bound for industrial and real estate construction were inspected by the United Nations between 1992 and 1998, notably the International Atomic Energy Agency, and were destroyed in U.S. bombings in 1991 and 1998.

“If one of you wants to visit the two sites, we will be ready to open up their doors so the truth becomes clear,” he told journalists.

“All we have done is rebuild the An-Nasr site without enlarging it, while we have undertaken no work at the Al-Furat site, which was being constructed when it was destroyed in 1991 and which was never used,” Howeish said.

“We have the right to rebuild the sites and businesses that are used to reconstruct Iraq, the bridges, the roads, the hospitals, the residential districts that were destroyed by the treacherous attackers.

“We do not have weapons of mass destruction. We do not have programs or plans to produce them and we have not violated U.N. Security Council resolutions relating to this issue in the absence of inspectors,” stressed Howeish.

Iraq on September 16 accepted the unconditional return of U.N. weapons inspectors after a near four-year pause.

But the inspectors’ mission is currently on hold while the United States and Britain wrangle with the other three permanent members of the Security Council - France, Russia and China - over the need for a tough new resolution, AFP said.

U.N. arms chief Hans Blix and IAEA director Mohammad el-Baradei said in a joint letter published Tuesday, October 8, that Iraq had agreed in talks in Vienna last week that weapons inspectors would be granted immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to sites deemed sensitive in the past, including eight presidential palaces.

After the press conference, Iraqi authorities took journalists on a tour of the two sites.

If the inspectors do a professional job they will not find weapons of mass destruction: Howeish

If the inspectors, on their return, “do a professional job and not political, we are sure that they will submit a positive report on the absence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, including the nuclear program,” Howeish said.

He added that if the United States were to attack Iraq, it would be predominantly an air war. “On the ground, they won't advance more than an inch.

“We are a peaceful people. But when we fight, we will be ferocious because we will fights for our lives, our land, our water, our homeland and our future.”

At the same time, U.S. aircraft attacked the international airport at Basra in southern Iraq on Thursday, the third strike in two weeks, destroying its radar system, Iraq announced.

“The evil American crows have struck and destroyed the civilian radar system and damaged the terminal halls,” a transport ministry spokesman told the official satellite television channel.

Meanwhile, anti-U.S. demonstrations broke out in front of the U.S. Embassy in Manila to protest the U.S. moves against Iraq including a possible military strike.

On another frontIraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz arrived in Beirut Thursday on a private visit from neighboring Syria, and called for finding ways to confront U.S. threats against Baghdad.

“We should be cautious about the US threats to strike Iraq and the way to confront it,” said Aziz on arriving by land at the Masnaa crossing point at the Syrian-Lebanese border.

“We should pay attention to the U.S. threats against Baghdad and the Arab nation,” he told reporters.

Aziz, who was received by State Minister Beshara Merhej and Iraqi charge d'affaires Nabil al-Janibi, will be the guest of honor at a dinner hosted by Arab nationalist activists in Beirut Thursday.

He was due to meet with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud on Friday, October 11, and head back to Damascus by land the next day.

In Syria, Aziz accused the United States Tuesday of planning to annihilate Iraq and divide up the Arab world to control its wealth.

He was speaking at a Damascus conference organized by Syrian and Jordanian non-governmental organizations that have lobbied for an end to the crippling 12-year-old U.N. sanctions on Iraq.