Iraq says Yes to UN Resolution

[Timber Loftis]

Personally, I think of this news as "Saddam stalls yet again," but here it is:

Nov. 13 — President Saddam Hussein has accepted a new U.N. resolution on the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, an Arab diplomat said Wednesday, two days ahead of the deadline set by the Security Council for Iraq to respond to the resolution.

“IT IS A positive reply,” said a Syrian envoy, Fayssal Mekdad, after conferring with Iraq’s U.N. ambassador, Mohamed Aldouri.
Aldouri told Reuters he was delivering a letter from his government to the 15-member Security Council.
Another Arab diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Baghdad had sent “a long letter,” to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, “but the short answer is that they accept.”
Iraq had until Friday to respond to the U.N. Security Council.
If confirmed by Saddam’s government, Iraq’s acceptance of the U.N. resolution would start a countdown to the return of weapons inspectors to Baghdad, and test the resolve of President Bush and the members of the Security Council to strip Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. The United States has vowed to use military action in the event Saddam refused to comply with the inspections.
The arms checks will be led by U.N. chief inspector Hans Blix, who is in charge of biological and chemical inspections, and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is in charge of nuclear inspections.
Iraq’s parliament recommended Tuesday that Saddam reject the resolution, which demands that Iraq cooperate fully with inspectors, who can go anywhere at any time to search for weapons of mass destruction.
On Wednesday, no newspapers reported the rejection recommendation. The gap between what the Iraqis are being told by the tightly controlled news outlets and what parliament said could mean Saddam believes he has no choice but to accept the resolution — but is looking to do so with minimum loss of face.
Earlier Wednesday, Russia, Iraq’s main ally on the U.N. Security Council, urged Baghdad to accept the resolution.
Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said Iraq’s “internal debates can probably be explained by the fact that the language of the resolution is certainly quite tough.”
“And so the emotions that the resolution may evoke in Iraqi society are in principle understandable. Nonetheless, we hope that the Iraqi leadership will take a pragmatic approach,” Fedotov said in Moscow.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

[johnny]

I wonder what kind of game they're playing this time.

[Ace of Spades]

Just stalling for more time. They need to prepare for the inevitable invasion.

[johnny]

Originally posted by Ace of Spades: Just stalling for more time. They need to prepare for the inevitable invasion.

Prepare how ? They will be crushed in less than 48 hours.

[Ace of Spades]

Prepare to poison the air with as much toxic gas as they can, hoping it will spread rapidly to other nations, killing thousands(millions?). They will be hoping we take the blame in the eyes of the world.

[Morgeruat]

I tend to be a cautious optimist with Saddam, while I had no doubts the previous inspections were slightly better than useless I hold hope this time, because of the language used in the agreement, which means if they obstruct the inspectors for any reason, like they did before, we go to war.

it will also help the US in the international arena, because now they can't say we just went and did our own thing without consulting the UN, like we tend to do quite often... I still think we're the worlds police force, and disagree with it, the US military is spread too thin to effectively stave off a full scale assault by our known enemies, such as North Korea, or China, but what do you expect when "1/3 of the army is either in Korea, getting back form Korea, or preparing to go to Korea" (to quote the Seargeant Major of the Army) not to mention all teh other places in teh world where US troops are stationed, but I'll save that tangent for another thread.

I have to agree with TL's assessment here.

Edit: don't look so shocked, I agree with him on a number of things

Well, We can only hope Cheney can overcome his desire to Protect Halliburton Co.’s investments in Iraq (since he made $millions as CEO of Halliburton’s, and of course made deals with saddam- A Halliburton spokesman acknowledged to the Tribune that the Dresser subsidiaries did sell oil-pumping equipment to Iraq via European agents.)

And that saddam is given the chance to prove his co-operation and that justice for all can be had (Hmm, yes of course)

[ 11-13-2002, 05:22 PM: Message edited by: Eisenschwarz ]

[Thoran]

Nobody in Iraq farts without Saddam's say so. You can bet your paycheck that the "Vote" the other day was orchestrated by Saddam to make him look like the peacemaker. "OO... my people want to fight, but I... SADDAM... am going to cut you guys some slack, cause that's the kind of guy I am". He's manuvering to maximize international sympathy, trying to APPEAR that he's accomidating, all the while you can bet he's trying to "flush the stash" so to speak... hiding everything that isn't bolted down.

It's as pathetically obvious as when he went on TV patting that child hostage's head and smiling.

The guy thinks he's a whole lot smarter than he is.

[johnny]

I saw footage tonight about life in Iraq. They actually teach the children in school that Saddam won the last gulfwar and crushed the big satan. It was a glorious victory for the mighty Iraqi army.

Sheesh... they do their utmost to raise ignorant children.