Iraq Tells U.S. to Abandon Hostility, Scholars Prohibit Helping U.S. in Strike

BAGHDAD, August 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iraq urged the United States Tuesday, August 13, to abandon its hostile policy and the United Nations to continue negotiations with Baghdad as the Iraqi regime mulled demands to open up to disarmament inspections.

The call came after Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri revealed Monday night, August 12, that Iraq was still working on a response to U.N. demands for unconditional inspections, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We are preparing a reply to his excellency the U.N. secretary general," Sabri told reporters without elaborating.

Kofi Annan's letter to Sabri was in response to an Iraqi invitation to the head of the U.N. arms inspectorate, Hans Blix, to visit Baghdad for talks on the possible resumption of monitoring.

A U.S. State Department spokesman scoffed at Iraq's statements. "I don't see any particular news in that. I think we've been quite clear that Iraq continues to refuse to give a straightforward answer to the U.N.," spokesman Philip Reeker said.

"[The Iraqi government] refused to face up to their obligations and continue to obfuscate and look for ways to move the goal posts when it's a simple situation. [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] understands exactly what needs to be done: that is comply fully with the U.N. Security Council resolutions and disarm."

However, Iraq's state-run media urged a re-think in Washington. "The United States must review its hostile policy towards Iraq and deal with it taking into account its regional, Arab and international importance," the ruling Baath Party's newspaper, Ath-Thawra, said.

The daily told Washington to stop "putting pressure on the world body to prevent it from answering the legitimate concerns of Iraq and normalizing relations," with the United Nations.

During three rounds of talks this year Iraq submitted to the Security Council a series of questions, notably on the lifting of sanctions and respect for its sovereignty, and is still awaiting an answer.

"If the U.S. administration wants to achieve serious results as governments across the world want, it should open channels of dialogue and stop marginalizing the role of the U.N.," said Babel newspaper.

"Facts have proven that Iraq is an essential pillar of peace and security in the region and any attempt to damage the security of the country would threaten the region," warned the daily run by President Saddam Hussein's elder son Uday.

Baghdad had Monday undermined international hopes for renewed U.N. arms monitoring when Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf said weapons inspectors had finished their work in Iraq.

"To say, as the United States does, that Iraq possesses prohibited weapons is pure invention. The teams of inspectors finished their work," Sahhaf told Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite television channel.

"The work of the United Nations ... on the so-called prohibited arms has been accosmplished," he said.

However, diplomats said Sahhaf appeared to be re-stating Iraq's long-held view and was not totally ruling out a return of inspectors.

"Iraq has expressed more than once its readiness to agree to a return of weapons inspectors in exchange for the respect by the United Nations Security Council of its commitments to Iraq," a Western diplomat told AFP.

"Iraqis believe and are still totally convinced that they can reach a just settlement to all their problems with the U.N. on condition that the United States does not interfere in this dialogue," he added, on condition of anonymity.

In his letter, Annan asked Iraq to confirm that it agreed to the Security Council's terms on disarmament and weapons inspections before Blix accepted the invitation to Baghdad.

The letter emphasized that Iraq must comply with every point of Resolution 1284, the last major overhaul of the council's Iraq policy, adopted in 1999.

Washington has repeatedly accused Iraq of harboring terrorists and developing biological and chemical weapons since disarmament inspections fled on the eve of sustained U.S. air strikes in December 1998.

U.S. President George W. Bush has called for a fresh military strike on Iraq with the declared aim of changing the regime in Iraq "by any means necessary," but also has promised to consult allies and the U.S. Congress before taking any action.

However, most members of the U.S.-led international coalition in Afghanistan, including European allies and especially those in the Middle East, have voiced serious reservations about U.S. calls to expand the war against terrorism to Iraq.

Sahhaf also described as "bats" Iraqi opposition members who held talks with senior U.S. officials over the weekend on plans to strike Iraq. "These bats are an American product. They are only a bad American product."

It was the first reaction from Baghdad to talks in Washington over the weekend between representatives of six Iraqi opposition groups and U.S. officials including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Sahhaf called the cooperation between the opposition and the U.S. administration a "game that reflects the weakness of the American position."

Meanwhile, the Israeli press Tuesday quoted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as ssaying that Iraq was the greatest threat to Israel.

Sharon was telling the parliamentary committee on defense and foreign affairs that the Israeli government was not involved in efforts to convince the United States to strike Iraq, reported the Jerusalem Post. It added, however, that the government should not express any opposition whatsoever to such an attack.

Ha’aretz quoted the premier as saying: "We don't know for certain if the US will attack Iraq. Iraq is a great danger. It could be said it is the greatest danger."

The "strategic coordination between Israel and the U.S. has reached unprecedented dimensions," Sharon also told MPs Monday night, as Washington stepped up its campaign for a strike on Iraq.

Israel fears that if Washington attacks Iraq, part of Baghdad's response will be an attack on Israel, as happened in 1991 when Iraqi Scud missile smacked into Israel, killing two people and injuring many.

In another development, Shiite Lebanese scholar Mohammad Hussein Fadl-Allah, issued a fatwa Monday that assisting the U.S. in a strike against Iraq is haram (prohibited). He said it was not permissible to allow the United states and its allies to strike Iraq or allow them to control Iraq’s natural resources or general policies.

“Allah has prohibited helping the infidels against Muslims and the arrogant on the weak,” he said.

Members of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the main opposition group from the country's majority Shiite Muslim community, were among the opposition members who met with U.S. officials in Washington.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Faysal Mawlawi, the vice president of the European Council on Research and Fatwas, told IslamOnline that it is not permissible for the Iraqi opposition to collaborate with the United States in its strike against Iraq in a bid to overthrow its current regime. He said this sort of collaboration is “treachery” to Allah, His Prophet (Peace and prayers Be Upon Him) and to Muslims.

Mawlawi added that changing the Iraqi regime in this manner will only destroy the country, humiliate the people and kill millions of Muslims, in addition to allowing the U.S. to control the Islamic world.