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Powell Warns Saddam Hussein As Russia "Working Seriously" To Lift UN Sanctions
CRAWFORD, Texas & BAGHDAD (AFP) - The new U.S. secretary of state-designate said Saturday Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's "failed regime" would not be around in a few years' time as Russia stated that it is working "seriously" on lifting the U.N. sanctions in force against Iraq.
Retired general Colin Powell made the remarks in Texas as President-elect George W. Bush announced that he was nominating the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Gulf War “hero” to be his secretary of state.
Powell still needs Senate confirmation to assume the job.
"Saddam Hussein is sitting on a failed regime that is not going to be around in a few years' time," Powell said. "The world is going to leave him behind, and that regime behind, as the world marches to new drummers, drummers of democracy and the free enterprise system."
"I don't know what it will take to bring him [Saddam Hussein] to his senses, but we are in the strong position, he is in the weak position," the secretary of state-designate added.
Powell, who played a leading role in the U.S.-led military campaign that booted Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991, noted that at the end of conflict, Baghdad had "agreed to the conditions that brought an end to the conflict, that they would fully account for all the weapons of mass destruction and other evil technologies that they were working on."
"They have not yet fulfilled those agreements, and my judgment is that sanctions in some form must be kept in place until they do so. We will work with our allies to re-energize the sanctions regime," he added.
"I think it is possible to re-energize those sanctions, and to continue to contain him, and then confront him should that become necessary again," he warned.
"I will make the case in every opportunity I get that we're not doing this to hurt the Iraqi people, we're doing this to protect the peoples of the region, the children of the region, who would be the targets of these weapons of mass destruction if we didn't contain them and get rid of them," Powell said.
Russia, on the other hand, and in direct conflict with Powell’s assertions, said that it is working "seriously" to lift the U.N. sanctions in force against Iraq since 1990, a Russian envoy said during talks in Baghdad on Saturday.
"Russia is working seriously to find a means to secure a lifting of the sanctions as soon as possible," Nikolai Kartuzov told Iraq's Foreign Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf.
"My country is determined to develop its relations with Iraq," the senior foreign ministry official said, quoted by the official news agency INA.
Sahhaf, in turn, expressed Iraq's appreciation of Russian support "for its legitimate demands for a lifting of the unjust embargo," slapped on Baghdad for its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
On December 14th, the Russian foreign ministry said only a suspension of U.N. sanctions could save Iraq.
"A true solution of Iraq's humanitarian crisis is impossible while the economic sanctions last," the ministry said in a statement, adding that Russia would continue to actively lobby the U.N. Security Council to suspend the embargo.
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