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This one of many tens of "country X doesn't support strikes" new items
I've seen. Thought this one was worth forwarding since Saudi also
expresses a view of how Saddam should behave.
P.S. Anyone watch the Johnathon Dimbleby programme? Could you provide a
summary to the list if it was interesting?
--
Zinni and Cohen war overtures unwelcome in Saudi
South News Feb 8
DUBAI: Saudi Arabian papers declared its opposition to a
military strike against Iraq setting Defence Secretary William
Cohen and the commander of US Gulf forces Marine Corps General
Zinni a challenge when they meets King Fahd on Sunday.
``We'll not agree and we are against striking Iraq as a people
and as a nation,'' the English-language daily Arab News on
Sunday quoted the Defence Minister Prince Sultan,as saying.
The Arabic-language daily Okaz also reported his remarks,
made to reporters on his return to the kingdom on Saturday
after convalescence in Morocco following surgery in
Switzerland last year.
Prince Sultan, who is defence and aviation minister, second
deputy prime minister and second in line for the throne after
Crown Prince Abdullah, urged Iraq to stick to U.N.
resolutions.
``At the same time, we say to (Iraqi President) Saddam
Hussein to abide by the U.N. resolutions in order to protect
his people and put an end to their seven-year-long
sufferings,'' he was quoted by the Arab News as saying.
Saudi Arabia was the springboard for the 1991 Gulf War led
by U.S. forces to expel Iraqi occupation troops from
Kuwait when the US Gulf field commander Swartzkopf was
technically under the command of the Saudi commander in chief.
U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen is due to arrive in
Saudi Arabia's commercial capital Jeddah on Sunday with
the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Marine
Corps General Anthony Zinni.
They are due from Germany at the start of a tour of
Washington's six Gulf Arab allies -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Cohen on Saturday ordered six stealth fighter-bombers, six
B-52 bombers, six F-16 fighters, one B-1B bomber and 23
support aircraft to join the huge American force of warships
and planes gathered in the Gulf and on Britain's Indian Ocean
island base of Diego Garcia.
The Saudi-based Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the
world's largest Moslem body, and its chairman, Iranian
President Mohammad Khatami, called over the weekend for
intensified efforts to avoid a military confrontation between
the United States and Iraq.
--
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