News, 3­10/9/00

["pbrooke" <pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk>]

NEWS 3­10/9/00

Again this is divided into two parts, with items I think are interesting but
not quite news sent separately as a supplement ­ PB

*  Saddam Hussein ill with cancer
*  Iraqi lawyers want verdict on Italian pilot overturned (Times of India)
*  Iraqi activities in Egypt
*  Jordanian ministers in Baghdad to boost trade
*  MKO reportedly to help Iraq regain control in Kurdistan (Voice of the
Islamic Republic of Iran)
*  Iraq denies scrapping free education (Times of India)
*  Arab League to abolish sanctions on Libya (Times of India)
*  French plane to land in Iraq
*  Annan Hindered U.N. Program [Butler]
*  Ex-UN arms chief in Iraq slams former colleague [Butler again]
*  Jordan wants to resume civil flights to Baghdad (CNN)
*  Water crisis in Iraq
*  Chinese, Iraqi Vice Premiers Discuss Bilateral Relations
*  Najib Mahfouz: the embargo against Iraq is futile
*  Iraq urges oil lifters to pay Gulf port charge (Business recorder)
*  OPEC a window on the world for sanctions-hit Iraq
*  Iraq Reportedly Gives Contracts to Nations That Want to End Sanctions
*  Some 1.35 million Iraqi children died due to the sanctions
*  Rafidah to lead (Malaysian) trade mission to Jordan and Iraq
*  Iraq: Shi'i opposition says regime "deteriorating", Saddam, son both ill
*  Iraqi Communist Party statement details anti-aircraft positions

IN THE SUPPLEMENT:

*  Panel will call for $3.2 billion in biological defense
*  State Dept. Accuses Iraq, Afghans [on religious toleration]
*  Pentagon says attack on Kurds would prompt U.S. military response (CNN)
*  Unrest Expected Amid Rumors of Saddamıs Ill Health (Stratfor.com)
*  Opec has world running on empty (The Star, Malaysia)  


http://news.24.com/News24/World/Middle_East/0,1113,2-10-35_906236,00.html

*  SADDAM HUSSEIN ILL WITH CANCER

Dubai (Agence France Press, 3rd September): Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
is to undergo chemotherapy for lymph cancer and a family council led by his
youngest son is ready to take control if he dies, a leading Arabic newspaper
said on Sunday.

Western newspapers have reported several times in recent years that Saddam
has cancer, but the London-based Asharq al-Awsat went into considerable
detail.

The Saudi financed publication quoted an Arab doctor "with an excellent
reputation" saying a medical team of three French doctors, one German and
one Swede were taking care of Saddam.

The team had been brought together by a committee chaired by the president's
personal secretary Abed Hmoud, the daily said.

One of the presidential palaces in a Baghdad suburb has been turned into a
private clinic for Saddam and equipped from Jordan, the Arab doctor, who is
attending a medical conference abroad, told Asharq al-Awsat.

Saddam had resigned himself to chemotherapy after suffering from inflamed
joints, breathing difficulties, poor vision and temporary memory loss, he
said.

Asharq al-Awsat also quoted "independent" Iraqi sources saying Saddam had
called a family meeting and appointed his son Qussay to head a "council"
which would run Iraq in the event of his death or if he is no longer fit
enough to carry on.

Besides Qussay, who is in charge of the elite Republican Guard, the meeting
was attended by his elder brother Uday and Saddam's three half-brothers
Barzan, Watban et Sabawi al Takriti, as well as Hmoud.

Barzan al-Takriti, who has fallen out with Saddam according to Arab reports,
is today a simple "advisor" within the family council which already takes
part in the running of Iraq's affairs, the Iraqi sources said.

The Iraqi authorities rarely comment on such reports, but several years ago
Saddam Hussein was shown on television swimming the Tigris River which runs
through Baghdad in a bid to deny Western reports that he was sick or dying.
­ Sapa-AFP


http://www.timesofindia.com/040900/04mide5.htm

*  IRAQI LAWYERS WANT VERDICT ON ITALIAN PILOT OVERTURNED (Times of India,
4th Sept))

BAGHDAD: The Union of Iraqi Lawyers pleaded on Sunday for a pan-Arab action
to overturn a guilty verdict against an Italian pilot for violating
Jordanian airspace on a sanctions-busting flight from Baghdad.

An Amman court on August 29 gave Nicolas Trifani a three-year prison
sentence in absentia for failing to request permission to enter Jordanian
airspace and thereby endangering air traffic. He was also fined 14,000
dollars.

The lawyers' union said in a statement that the sentence "is political and
runs counter to the public policies of the Jordanian government in favour of
lifting sanctions." "The sentence is intended to stop planned visits to Iraq
by several delegations who want to break the embargo and express their
solidarity with the Iraqi people," it said. The lawyers called on other Arab
lawyers "to support the Italian pilot and defend him to overturn the
sentence."

The Jordanian jurists' association is seeking Trifani's agreement to file an
appeal on his behalf. Trifani was forced to land at a military base on April
5 when he returned from Baghdad where he had arrived two days earlier on a
trip of "solidarity with the Iraqi people." He was accompanied by two other
Italians and a French priest. Jordan allowed him to leave Amman four days
later. (AFP)


http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/000904/2000090406.htm

*  IRAQI ACTIVITIES IN EGYPT (Arabic News, 4th Sept)

The Secretary General of the Arab league ( AL) Ismat Abdul Miguid on Sunday
in Cairo received Iraq's foreign minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf.

The two sides discussed topics listed on the agenda of the 114th session of
the AL's council On the other hand, meetings of the 8th session of the joint
Egyptian- Iraqi trade committee were concluded on Sunday. They had started
four days earlier.

Egypt's minister of the economy and foreign trade Youssef Butrous Ghali and
his Iraqi counterpart Muhammad Mahdi Saleh had agreed to have the volume of
trade relations between the two countries to a rate exceeding US $ one
billion annually.

The two sides expressed their satisfaction over the high rates in
implementing joint plans which reflect the joint interests to backing all-
out cooperation between the two states.


http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/09/05/iraq.jordan.reut/index.html

*  JORDANIAN MINISTERS IN BAGHDAD TO BOOST TRADE

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters, September 5) -- Two Jordanian cabinet ministers have
arrived in Baghdad to discuss how to expand Jordanian exports under Iraq's
oil-for-food deal with the United Nations, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

They said Jordan's Trade and Industry Minister Wasef Azzar and Transport
Minister Mohammad Kalaldah would hold talks with Iraqi officials in the
fields of commerce, oil, industry and transport.

"The visit aims at expanding trade ties with Iraq in all fields," the papers
quoted Azzar as saying.

They said the Jordanians were received by Iraq's Trade Minister Mohammed
Mehdi Saleh who said the volume of trade between the two neighbors had
reached $1.4 billion since the beginning of the oil programme in December
1996.

The oil deal currently allows Iraq to sell unlimited quantities of oil to
buy food, medicines and other humanitarian goods for the Iraqi people,
battered by stringent U.N. sanctions imposed for Iraq's 1990 invasion of
Kuwait.

"Jordan will remain Iraq's main and important trade outlet," Saleh said.

Iraq was Jordan's biggest trading partner before the United Nations trade
sanctions. Jordan's exports to Iraq under the oil programme are only a
fraction of what they were before the sanctions were imposed.

The newly appointed Jordanian government recently put out feelers to
Baghdad, hinting that it sought better ties after a number of
misunderstandings over the last few years.

Despite the sanctions, Baghdad remains Jordan's main energy supplier as it
delivers annually over $600 million worth of crude and products to the
kingdom under undisclosed concessionary terms that ease the burden on the
kingdom's deficit-ridden budget.

Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan visited Jordan in July and held
talks with Jordan's king Abdullah and Prime Minister Ali Abu al-Ragheb aimed
at improving ties after years of gradual drift.

Jordan, sympathetic to Iraq in the 1990-91 Gulf crisis over Kuwait, turned
against Baghdad in 1995 and gave shelter to senior Iraqi defectors. The late
King Hussein then called for a change of administration in Iraq.

But in recent years Jordan has been an advocate of lifting the sanctions,
which it says hurt only the Iraqi people.


http://search.ft.com/search/multi/globalarchive.jsp?docId=000905006508&query
=Iraq&resultsShown=20&resultsToRequest=100
 
*  MKO REPORTEDLY TO HELP IRAQ REGAIN CONTROL IN KURDISTAN
Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran external service, 5th September/BBC
Monitoring Service

The Iraqi regime is using the MKO [Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization] terrorist
group to return control of the northern part of Iraq back to the central
government.

Saddam Husayn's son, Qusayy, announced yesterday in Baghdad that he will be
making use of the MKO in order to restore control of northern Iraq back to
the central government. The Kurdish-inhabited northern part of Iraq was
jointly taken over by Iraq's Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan in 1991.

The MKO terrorist group, which is based in Iraq and gets financial support
from the American Central Intelligence Agency, has until now cooperated
extensively with Saddam's regime in suppressing the Iraqi people; and the
struggle of the people for driving out the MKO from Iraqi soil has taken on
greater dimension.


http://www.timesofindia.com/060900/06mide7.htm

*  IRAQ DENIES SCRAPPING FREE EDUCATION (Times of India, 6th Sept)

BAGHDAD: Sanctions-hit Iraq on Tuesday denied reports that it was scrapping
free education, forcing four million students to pay up from this month.

"Free teaching is guaranteed for all Iraqi pupils and students in all stages
of education," Education Minister Fahd Salem al-Shaqra was quoted by
newspapers as saying.

The education ministry would, however, continue to charge nominal fees for
night class students, he added.

The Saut Al-Talaba (Students' Voice) newspaper reported on September 2 that
the education ministry had set a scale of fees ranging from 2,000 dinars
(one dollar) in primary schools and up to 25,000 dinars (12.50 dollars) for
the coming academic year.

The pro-government newspaper run by the students' union did not make it
clear if university courses would also be affected.

Parents were asked to provide school books and equipment for their children
last year for the first time in 30 years.

Under sanctions, education standards have slipped in a country which boasted
one of the best systems in the Arab world, built on the back of the oil boom
of the 1970s. (AFP)


http://www.timesofindia.com/060900/06mide1.htm

*  ARAB LEAGUE TO ABOLISH SANCTIONS ON LIBYA (Times of India, 6th Sept)

(NOTE: I include this item in the fond hope it may constitute a precedent
for the Arab League unilaterally breaking UN Security Council resolutions ­
PB)

CAIRO: The Arab League announced on Tuesday its member states will stop
applying United Nations sanctions on Libya "as soon as possible", calling
the UN Security Council for an immediate and final lifting of all the
sanctions.

No precise date was announced for the action, which is supposed to be
implemented on a bilateral basis, sources close to the League said.

The final communique of the Arab League ministerial council called on the
United States to settle problems blocking the way for normalising
relationships with Libya, leaving the Lockerbie issue to the courts.

The UN Security Council lifted some sanctions in April 1999 after Libya
handed over two of its nationals to face charges of involvement in the 1988
downing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people were
killed.

The United States remains opposed to a full lifting of the sanctions.

Monday's ministerial council statement also expressed solidarity with Libya
in demanding "a just and honest trial for its suspect citizens, taking into
consideration their legal and human rights during and after the trial".

The Arab foreign ministers, who met for two days in Cairo, also pledged they
are committed "to support the Libyan right of getting fair compensation for
human and financial damages because of the sanctions". (AFP)


http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=115235

*  FRENCH PLANE TO LAND IN IRAQ by GHASSAN al-KADI

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 6 (United Press International) - An Air France plane
with 180 passengers will land Thursday in Baghdad's newly reopened Saddam
International Airport, Iraqi sources said Wednesday.

The move is reportedly meant to pressure the United Nations to lift the
10-year-old sanctions, which were imposed on Iraq following its invasion of
Kuwait in 1990. The embargo also prohibits flights into Iraq.

Sources told United Press International that the 180 passengers on the Air
France Airbus were French, European and Arab personalities and included a
number of activists who were against the international sanctions.

The sources said the flight was initially scheduled to arrive in Baghdad
Wednesday after getting approval from the French government but that it was
delayed due to "unknown reasons."

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said Monday that international
sanctions did not include banning civil flights from and to Iraq and that
the U.N. Security Council did not adopt any such resolution. Vedrine
explained that air flights that carried passengers and goods from and to
Iraq did not need prior authorization.

Meanwhile, Jordanian Transportation Minister Mohammed Kalaida said Wednesday
that his country had contacted the United Nations to allow opening Jordanian
airspace to the plane.

Saddam International Airport reopened last month at a cost of $500 million.
The airport was badly damaged by Western air raids during the Gulf war.
Since its reopening, it has been used by a Russian and German plane.

http://www.iraqdaily.com/?action=display&article=3439736&template=iraq/index
.txt&index=recent

*  ANNAN HINDERED U.N. PROGRAM

WASHINGTON (Associated Press, 7 Sep) ‹ U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan set
in motion a process in 1998 that contributed to the eventual breakdown of
the U.N. weapons inspection program, a former chief of the program said
Thursday night.

"Did he harm our operation? Yes,'' said Richard Butler, the Australian who
once headed the now-defunct U.N. Special Commission, known as UNSCOM.

Speaking to a gathering at the American Enterprise Institute, Butler said
the turning point occurred when Annan sent three envoys to Baghdad to
discuss the Security Council resolutions on Iraq that were passed after the
Persian Gulf War in 1991.

By dispatching the envoys, Annan "sent an unambiguous signal to the Iraqi
authorities ... that here was a way out from dealing with us (UNSCOM),''
Butler said.

"Henceforth they could deal with the office of the secretary general on a
nonspecific, nontechnical political track. That was exactly what they
wanted.''

The UNSCOM initiative officially broke down at the end of 1998 after Iraq
refused further cooperation with Butler and his team. As punishment, the
United States and Britain engaged in four days of air strikes against
targets in Iraq.

The Security Council has attempted to create a successor inspection system
but Iraq has said it will not cooperate. Butler said the absence of U.N.
monitors has enabled Iraq to revive its weapons programs.

Annan's injection of diplomacy into the Iraq issue "undercut our effort on
weapons and he (Saddam Hussein) is still there and back in business,''
Butler said.

Butler spoke hours after Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said U.N.
economic sanctions have created a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq, and said
U.S. influence in the world body was to blame.

Aziz commented in a speech to the U.N. Millennium Summit in New York. Iraq
maintains the sanctions should be lifted because it has dismantled all
forbidden weapons.

Butler scolded critics who say Iraq is not cooperating with U.N. resolutions
because the Clinton administration has said the sanctions will remain in
place until Saddam is removed from power, regardless of Iraqi compliance.

Butler acknowledged that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright staked out
such a position in 1998 but soon backtracked.

"Iraq has been told over and over again that that is not U.S. policy, and
for Iraq to persist with this fallacy is wrong,'' Butler said.

"They prefer to say that this is U.S. policy when it is not because they
actually prefer to keep their weapons of mass destruction even if it means
the sanctions would remain in place,'' he added.


http://www.brecorder.com/story/S00DD/SDI09/SDI09238.htm

*  EX-UN ARMS CHIEF IN IRAQ SLAMS FORMER COLLEAGUE (Business recorder)

WASHINGTON (September 9) : The man who once ran a UN arms inspection
operation in Iraq revived a war of words with inspector Scott Ritter on
Thursday, saying he had "left the rails" in his views on disarming President
Saddam Hussein.

The comments by former Unscom (UN Special Commission) chief Richard Butler
in a talk at the American Enterprise Institute were directed against Ritter,
an American who was a chief arms inspector for the team which left after
Iraq accused it of spying and before a US-British bombing campaign.

Ritter has since said that Iraq no longer has a significant prohibited
weapons capability. He has also stated the operation was used by the Central
Intelligence Agency to spy, including to select targets for US bombings.

The United States, and Butler, an Australian, deny this.

Butler said that no intelligence agency had penetrated Unscom as far as he
knew but that Unscom had sought help from 40 intelligence agencies in
investigating Iraq.

"I authorised intelligence co-operation with the US and believe me I'd do it
all over again. Why not? It was legal," he said, adding that he had even
asked China to flesh out what he knew about its assistance to Iraq but never
got a reply.

"There was a time when I asked for intelligence assistance to penetrate the
Iraqi wall of deceit where they were lying to us and we were given some. I
think we broke new ground in arms control," he said.

"Oh, by the way I can deal with the Ritter question very simply," Butler
said in an aside while responding to a series of questions from the
audience.

"What do I think of Scott and what he's been saying? It's nonsense and I'm
truly sad that a basically good man has left the rails," he said. "This
whole notion of qualitative disarmament is a fabrication," he added.

Ritter has said that instead of requiring inspectors to declare Iraq free of
any banned long range missile, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons
capabilities, they should assess whether it had retained any "meaningful"
capacity.-Reuters


http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/09/06/jordan.iraq.reut/index.html

*  JORDAN WANTS TO RESUME CIVIL FLIGHTS TO BAGHDAD (CNN, September 6)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Jordan has asked the United Nations to give the green
light to the resumption of direct flights between Amman and Baghdad, a top
Jordanian official said Wednesday.

"We have asked for the U.N. permission to resume civil flights to Iraq and
we are expecting a reply in this regard next month," Jordanian Transport
Minister Mohammad Kalaldah told the official Iraqi News Agency INA.

Iraq says there are no U.N. Security Council resolutions that prevent
civilian planes from flying into and out of the country.

 But the U.N. sanctions committee on Iraq maintains that civilian flights
are an economic resource whose reinstatement would be a breach of the
sanctions regime.

INA said Kalaldah and his Iraqi counterpart, Ahmed Murtada Ahmed, met
Wednesday to discuss the resumption of flights between the Jordanian
capital, Amman, and Baghdad.

Iraq re-opened Baghdad's international airport on Aug. 17 after 10 years of
enforced closure. Civilian air traffic at the airport stopped when sanctions
were imposed on Iraq days after President Saddam Hussein sent his forces
into Kuwait in August 1990.

A Jordanian court last week sentenced an Italian pilot to three years in
jail for flying a plane to Baghdad in defiance of a 10-year-old U.N. ban on
flights to Iraq.


http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/000907/2000090701.html Free!

*  WATER CRISIS IN IRAQ (7th Sept)

The severe drought crisis which has been hitting Iraq hard since three years
and the decreased water level in the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers have
pushed hundreds of peasants and farmers to dig wells to irrigate their
farms. Iraq's irrigation ministry secretary Abdul Sattar Salman said that
water level at the Tigris reached levels never seen since 75 years, noting
that the drought might lead a decrease in wheat production to 37%.


http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200009/07/eng20000907_49968.html

*  CHINESE, IRAQI VICE PREMIERS DISCUSS BILATERAL RELATIONS (People's Daily,
7th Sept)

Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen met Wednesday with Iraqi Deputy Prime
Minister Tareq Aziz to exchange views on bilateral relations.

Qian described the current Sino-Iraqi relations as "very good." He told Aziz
that the Chinese people are concerned about the suffering of the Iraqi
people brought by the sanctions against the country.

Qian said that China has always sympathized with and supported Iraq's
efforts for lifting the sanctions.

He said that some members of the U.N. Security Council share the same view
with China in this regard and that many developing countries also hope
sanctions should be lifted as soon as possible.

Aziz, speaking highly of China's stand on the sanction issue, said that
relations between the two countries in all fields are in a very good shape.

The Iraqi prime minister, who is here attending the three-day Millennium
Summit of the United Nations, also briefed Qian on Iraq's efforts in
improving its ties with neighboring countries.


 http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/000907/2000090715.html

*  NAJIB MAHFOUZ: THE EMBARGO AGAINST IRAQ IS FUTILE (9th Sept)

The Egyptian renowned man of letter Najib Mahfouz has announced that the
international embargo imposed on Iraq is " now futile and outdated."

In a statement issued in the Iraqi weekly "Alif, Baa " Mahfouz said " the
embargo on Iraq now is illogical."

Mahfouz who won the Nobel literary prize in 1988 added " We know that the
war ( Gulf war) has imposed conditions on Iraq and these conditions were
carried out. This means the siege should be ended."

This means that the embargo should be ended." He said " it is not logic to
continue the siege until children die of hunger. This situation does not
please any one, being an Arab or not."

On ways of standing against this embargo, Mahfouz said " first we embark on
useful ways in the Arab League and then at the UN I see that most of the
Arab leaders have relations with America and the West and those leaders
should try to lift the embargo from Iraq."


http://www.brecorder.com/story/S00DD/SDI07/SDI07263.htm

*  IRAQ URGES OIL LIFTERS TO PAY GULF PORT CHARGE (Business Recorder)

LONDON (September 7) : Iraq is urging crude oil lifters to pay a new port
charge at its Gulf terminal at Mina al-Bakr or risk being turned away for
not paying up, industry sources said on Wednesday.

"We hope we don't have to turn anyone away, but that is our next move," a
source in Baghdad told Reuters.

About half the tanker owners and lifters at Mina al-Bakr, which handles up
to 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) of Basrah Light exports, have paid up
since the $15,000 to $18,000 per ship fee was imposed in June, an Iraqi
official said.

Payment ultimately has been made by some in Iraqi dinars - now valued at
about 2,000 to the US dollar - but others are finding it difficult to come
up with the huge amount of local currency needed, industry sources said.

"Our port operations are suffering. The tug boats are wrecked and we need to
replace them," the Iraqi official said. "So we decided to apply a port fee
on oil tankers from June 1."

But some are loath to cough up the fee - not because it is unwarranted but
because the United Nations, which oversees Baghdad's multibillion dollar
oil-for-food deal, deems payment for Iraqi services in US dollars illegal,
market sources said.

"If there is no money being transferred, (state oil marketer) SOMO might
decide not to berth our vessel," an industry source said. "The UN must
legitimise and standardise this procedure before someone gets held up by
it."

An official at Norway's International Association of Independent Tanker
Owners (Intertanko) said Iraqi port agents at Mina al-Bakr are threatening
to blacklist those refusing to pay.

"But to date we have no information about ships being held or refused cargo
due to lack of payment," the official said.

Intertanko has advised its members that "as per the UN, Iraq's charging of
port expenses in US dollars is illegal."

But Iraqi officials said the UN does permit payment for services in its own
currency, the dinar.

That is why SOMO has issued dinar invoices to tanker owners, a source in
Baghdad said.

"More than 50 percent have paid and others are willing to pay," said an
Iraqi official. "The UN does not mind payment in dinars."

Lifters themselves do not begrudge Iraq's imposition of comparatively cheap
port charges.

"These are legitimate expenses and Iraq is entitled to cover costs," one
lifter said. "But the United Nations needs to sort out a method for
payment."

Under the UN oil-for-food programme, which started in late 1996, Iraq is
allowed to sell crude oil in exchange for humanitarian goods.

Exports have been running at roughly 2.2-2.3 million bpd, with up to 1.4
million bpd Basrah Light and the remainder Kirkuk grade out of the Turkish
Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Reuters


http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/afp/article.html?s=singapore/h
eadlines/000907/world/afp/OPEC_a_window_on_the_world_for_sanctions
hit_Iraq.html

*  OPEC A WINDOW ON THE WORLD FOR SANCTIONS-HIT IRAQ

BAGHDAD, Sept 7 (Agence France Presse) - Iraq, where OPEC was founded on
September 14, 1960, is today using its weight within the cartel to make its
voice heard on the world stage and reduce the isolation of a decade-long
embargo.

"Iraq hopes that the organisation which was founded on its territory is
increasingly successful and united to face new challenges," an Iraqi oil
expert speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP.

"We would have liked OPEC to have accomplished more in its four decades of
existence but we are nonetheless satisfied with its actions if you take into
account the political situation it has worked in," he added.

Under embargo since the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and largely sidelined in
regional groupings and the United Nations, Baghdad considers OPEC a forum
that allows it to speak out because of the country's immense oil reserves,
second in the world only to those of Saudi Arabia.

Conscious of Iraq's oil wealth, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez openly
defied the United States by visiting Baghdad on August 10 to personally
invite Saddam Hussein to the cartel's summit from September 26-28.

It is only the second such meeting since the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries was founded in Baghdad in September 14, 1960. The last
took place in Algiers in 1975.

The visit by Chavez, whose country holds the rotating presidency of OPEC,
was the first to Iraq by a head of state since the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraq plans to mark next week's 40th anniversary of the creation of OPEC with
celebrations and a symposium.

"Iraq's attachment to OPEC is not explained solely by its role in the oil
market but also by Baghdad's political motivation to break its international
isolation," a western diplomat based in Baghdad told AFP.

"Iraq has benefited from its membership in OPEC to make its voice heard and
strike up contacts with other countries, notably during the early years of
the embargo," he said.

Iraq has taken part in all OPEC meetings "even when it was not authorised to
export oil (between 1990 and 1996), to prove it would remain a key actor at
the heart of this important group," the diplomat said.

For the Iraqi expert, "OPEC will continue to play a major role on the oil
market even if some announced its death several years ago."

"All studies confirm that oil will remain a vital and irreplaceable product
for the moment, which means the organisation that determines the oil
strategies of these countries will continue to be influential for at least
the next decade."

Sharing this view, the governmental newspaper Al-Jumhuriya voiced hopes
Tuesday that OPEC will transform itself into an influential economic bloc to
counter US dominance.

In an article titled "Iraq triumphs, OPEC crushes US hegemony", the daily
said "the upcoming OPEC summit raises great hopes of seeing the organisation
transforming itself into an influential economic bloc."

Concerned at preserving the "independence" of OPEC, Iraq has even put
forward its own candidate, Abdel Amir al-Anbari, to succeed Nigerian Rilwanu
Lukam as the cartel's secretary general.

Even if he has little chance of being elected, Anbari's candidacy allows
Iraq to block candidates from Iran and Saudi Arabia, Baghdad's main rivals
in the region, as the post has to be elected unanimously.

Iraq is authorised to export crude oil under a programme to finance imports
of essential goods under strict UN supervision.

Although an OPEC member, it is exempted from the cartel's production quota
system because of the embargo.


www.nytimes.com/2000/09/07/world/07IRAQ.html

September 7, 2000

*  IRAQ REPORTEDLY GIVES CONTRACTS TO NATIONS THAT WANT TO END SANCTIONS
(New York Times)
by Judith Miller

The Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq has consistently used the United
Nations' oil-for food program to reward countries that call for ending
economic sanctions against Iraq, and to punish those that oppose lifting the
embargo, administration officials familiar with the findings have said.

The officials said the C.I.A. stated in a new report that President Saddam
Hussein of Iraq has given the bulk of contracts in the program to China,
France and Russia, as well as to other vocal champions of lifting the
sanctions. The Security Council imposed the sanctions after Iraq invaded
Kuwait in 1990 to force Iraq to give up weapons of mass destruction.

The Council instituted the oil-for- food program in 1996 to let Iraq sell
some of its oil to help ease the suffering of ordinary Iraqis reportedly
caused by the sanctions. But the C.I.A. study shows that Iraq has also used
the program as a lever to pry open the sanctions by rewarding allies with
contracts, especially those on the 15-member Security Council. The Council
can vote to lift the sanctions, and to punish its foes.

"Over the life of the program, Baghdad has awarded one-third of the
contracts to France, Russia and China," the report states. "Besides these
Security Council members and neighbors, Iraq has given substantial
oil-for-food business to others that deliver antisanctions rhetoric."

Iraq has even denied contracts to traditional suppliers who have not called
for an end to sanctions. The report notes that Japan and Germany, Iraq's two
largest suppliers before the gulf war, have each received "only 1 percent of
total contracts."

The two-page report is accompanied by charts and graphs that demonstrate the
strong correlation between support for lifting sanctions and the awarding of
contracts under the program, which is now in what the United Nations
accounting system calls Phase 8. Each phase corresponds to a period of 180
days.

Copies of several of the graphs and charts were provided to The New York
Times, and sections of the report were read to a reporter by officials who
had read the report and thought that its conclusions should be more widely
known.

The report, which was completed last month and is secret, is little surprise
to the Clinton administration, Iraq's most vocal critic on the Security
Council and the chief advocate of continuing the sanctions until Iraq proves
that it has abandoned its programs for nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons. But the report is quite likely to reinforce administration
frustration over the mounting pressure among nations and aid organizations
to lift the sanctions on the ground that they inflict undue hardship on the
Iraqi people.

In response to such pressures last year, the Security Council lifted the
ceiling on how much oil Baghdad could sell. As a result, United Nations
records show, Iraqi oil exports have soared, as have the contracts for food,
medicine and other social programs. In the part of Phase 8 from June 9 to
Aug. 25, Iraq earned $3.8 billion in oil revenues.

Iraq is pumping two million barrels of oil a day.

Based on United Nations statistics, the C.I.A. determined that contacts to
Vietnam, for instance, began rising sharply in January 1998, after
Vietnamese cabinet ministers endorsed an end to the sanctions, climbing from
$50 million in 1998 to $170 million three phases later. Contracts to Lebanon
jumped on two occasions, after Beirut denounced a four-day bombing series
against Iraq, and after Lebanon sent an aide for commercial liaison to
Baghdad.

Although 40 percent of Iraqi oil exports eventually wind up in the United
States, Washington, not surprisingly, has sold almost nothing to Baghdad
under the program.


 http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/000908/2000090808.html

* SOME 1.35 MILLION IRAQI CHILDREN DIED DUE TO THE SANCTIONS
Arabic News .com, 8th September

The sanctions imposed on Iraq has resulted in the death of 1.35 million
Iraqi children while the number of women's deaths after delivery increased
as well as number of handicapped- births.

This is in line with the Iraqi memorandum studied by the executive bureau of
the council of the Arab ministers of social affairs on Wednesday in Cairo.
By its turn, the council decided to submit a memorandum to lift the
sanctions imposed on the Iraqi people to the next session of the council to
be held in November.

The Assistant secretary general of the Arab League for social affairs Daw
Sweidan said that the executive bureau recommended in its decisions released
on Thursday on the importance of lifting the sufferings from the Iraqi
people and alleviating the social consequences inflected on them.

He added that the Bureau agreed to allocate US $ 50,000 for Iraq as a
technical aid to conduct a field research on margined social strata,
especially the disabled.

He made it clear that the bureau also agreed to allocate the same amount of
technical aids to each of Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan in order to support
certain social projects there.

The executive bureau also decided September 28 to be the Arab women's day,
the day in which the Arab women committee at the Arab League was established
in 1971 and the year 2002 was set as the year for the Arab women.


http://www.bernama.com/bernama/business/bu0909_10.htm
 
*  RAFIDAH TO LEAD TRADE MISSION TO JORDAN AND IRAQ
 
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 9 (Bernama, Malysia) -- Minister of International Trade
and Industry Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz will lead a trade and investment
mission to Jordan and Iraq beginning Sept 11,2000.

A statement from the the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)
said the objectives of the nine-day mission is to update the business
community in Jordan and Iraq on the current economic progress in Malaysia
and to explore business and investment opportunities.

The mission would also promote Malaysia as a tourist destination and also as
a centre of conventions and trade fair exhibitions.

MITI also said that several business meetings have been arranged between
representatives of Malaysian companies with potential Jordanian and Iraqi
counterparts aimed at business collaboration and joint ventures in several
areas.

They are in areas like consumer food products, wood based industries,
furniture, electrical and electronics, phamaceuticals, cosmetics and health
products, construction and petrochemical.

Rafidah is scheduled to address the business community in Jordan at a
seminar on "Business Opportunities in Malaysia" on Sept 12 while a similar
seminar has been arranged in Baghdad on Sept 16.

The minister is also scheduled to launch the Proton Satria Gti model and the
new corporate logo of Proton in Jordan besides meeting with Federation of
Jordanian Chambers of Commerce and Amman Chamber of Industry.

Mission members comprises officials from MITI, the Malaysian Industrial
Development Authority, Malaysian External Trade Development Corporation, the
Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority and 69 private sector members from
50 companies involved in various sectors such as energy and power
transmission, telecommunications, building materials, furniture,
phamaceuticals, wood products, food products, consultancy and consumer
products.

Malaysia's exports to Jordan in 1999 amounted to RM261.6 million or 3.4
percent share of Jordan's imports.

Major export items to Jordan were mainly palm oil and palm stearin.

In 1999, Malaysia's trade with Iraq amounted to RM63.8 million mainly to
meet the demand under the oil-for-food programme.


http://search.ft.com/search/multi/globalarchive.jsp?docId=000910000636&query
=Iraq&resultsShown=20&resultsToRequest=100
 
* IRAQ: SHI'I OPPOSITION SAYS REGIME "DETERIORATING", SADDAM, SON BOTH ILL
('Al-Sharq al-Awsat' web site, London, in Arabic 10 Sep 00 /BBC Monitoring)

London: In a statement sent to `Al-Sharq al-Awsat' yesterday, the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [SCIRI] warned the states,
institutions and companies that seek to normalize relations with Iraq that
Saddam Husayn's regime is "trembling and deteriorating", especially with the
Iraqi president's suffering of "cancer" and his eldest son Uday's
"paralysis", and also as a result of the "conflict inside the family and the
growing popular discontent among the Iraqi people and army".

The statement added that the "attempts to normalize relations are against
the principles of human rights and run counter to all international norms
and laws". The statement accused the states that seek normalization with
Baghdad of being "interested in keeping Saddam's regime because the debts it
owes them for the weapons they sold during the wars it staged against the
Iraqi people and its neighbours".

The statement added that the advocates of normalization include
"organizations that received funds from Saddam to beautify the regime's ugly
face in the world, as well as companies that benefited from the export of
materials that were used in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction".
The statement highlighted the anti-regime operations in the past several
years, including "a Katyusha attack on the Presidential Palace, the bombing
of Ba'th Party headquarters, and the assassination of several senior
security and intelligence officers".


http://search.ft.com/search/multi/globalarchive.jsp?docId=000910000757&query
=Iraq&resultsShown=20&resultsToRequest=100

 *  IRAQI COMMUNIST PARTY STATEMENT DETAILS ANTI-AIRCRAFT POSITIONS
('Al-Sharq al-Awsat' web site, London, in Arabic 10 Sep/BBC Monitoring
Service)

In a statement received by `Al-Sharq al-Awsat', the Iraqi Communist Party
[IPC] yesterday accused the Baghdad regime of "capitalizing" on the losses
sustained by civilians as a result of the US and British air raids on the
no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq and of "concealing" the losses
among the military. It also accused it of "persisting" in setting up missile
launchers and anti-aircraft guns "in civilian residential areas".

Citing information received by the party from the town of Al-Samawah, which
was the target of daily attacks on 11th and 12th August, the statement says
that the bombing was directed at the site of "Air Defence Battalion 71",
whose batteries are located in the town's railway station, nearby
residential areas, and Al-Salman and Al-Khidr Districts. The bombing led to
the death of two soldiers from the battalion and the wounding of others,
including Staff Col Wisam from Diyala.

The statement says: The danger threatens residential areas and other
civilian areas in the southern govenorates and Nineveh Governorate, where US
and British aircraft are carrying out daily sorties in their air space.
Information reaching us from some parts of the central Euphrates region says
that air defence units, missile launchers and anti-aircraft guns have been
deployed inside the Luna Park in Karbala, and Al-Nasr quarter in Karbala
near the quarries. They have also been deployed in Ayn al-Tamr near the
water spring, Jurf al-Sakhr Subdistrict in Al-Musayyib District,
Al-Yusufiyah Subdistrict near Hawr Rajab marshland, Al-Mishkhab barrage,
garment factory in Al-Najaf, the towns of Abu-Gharaq in Babil Governorate,
Jumjumah village near Saddam palace in Babil, the residential areas in Al
Iskandariyah, Al-Muthanna quarter in Al-Hindiyah District, the orchards of
Al-Ghammas village, Al-Utayshi village in Karbala, Agriculture College in
Al-Kufah University, Al-Jubur village in Al-Durah, Al-Najaf-Abu-Sukhayr
highway on Bahr al-Najaf river with the dense residential areas on its
shores, the factories of Hamurabi asphalt factory, Al-Jiri asphalt factory,
and other areas.

The statement says: Air defence positions are also spread in Mosul
Governorate rural areas and villages, including those of Ba'shiqah, Bahzani
and Badush. Information received by us from the contact areas in Dohuk
Governorate speak about the increasing number of air defence vehicles
roaming the villages and carrying anti-aircraft weapons. The information
adds that the inhabitants there have abandoned their villages out of fear of
the bombs that are dropped by US and British aircraft in reply to the
anti-aircraft fire.

According to the statement also government anti-aircraft guns "are mostly
aimed at such an angle that their rockets fail to hit the aircraft and fall
in the village situated behind the contact lines in the Kurdistan region,
which is outside the regime's control. This has caused more than one
casualty among their civilian population and losses among their livestock
and property."














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