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TITLE: Saddam Says Israel Behind Air Attacks |
AUTHOR: Daniel Sobelman |
PUB: Ha'aretz |
DATE: February 18, 2001 |
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The Iraqi regime led by Saddam Hussein held Israel partly accountable for the air attack launched by U.S. and British combat fighters on radar and infrastructure targets in Baghdad, on Friday, even though Israel was not involved in the raid. The air attack, the first of its kind since the end of 1998, was justified by American and British leaders as a necessary measure, aimed at protecting their forces in the Persian Gulf region. The Iraqi regime announced that two civilians were killed by the air strikes, and that dozens more were injured by it. Saddam Hussein's government released a communique after the Friday raid, claiming that "the aggression unleashed tonight against targets in the Baghdad area emphasizes that America schemes, and carries out its plots, hand in hand with the Zionist entity." The announcement added that the air attack was an exercise undertaken to "set the stage for actions which the Zionist entity is planning to carry out against Arabs and Palestinians." Perpetrators of the strike, the announcement added, believed that "this act of aggression would stifle Iraq's determination to save its Arab brothers, when the moment of truth comes." The anti-Israel condemnation supplemented bitter Iranian media attacks on the new U.S. president. On Saturday Iranian state radio slammed the American and British air strikes on Iraq, accusing President George W. Bush of trying to pick up where his father left off and overthrow the Baghdad government of President Saddam Hussein Though Israel's leadership was reportedly caught by surprise by the American-British air strikes, outgoing government ministers professed not to be worried that the attacks would spark a Persian Gulf flare-up. Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh told Israel Radio that "we don't need to be concerned about the events" of Friday. Sneh stressed that an Iraqi build-up of weapons of mass destruction poses a long-term, rather than immediate, threat to Israel and the region as a whole. "Hussein is exploiting the absence of international inspections to build chemical, biological and probably nuclear weapons," Sneh said. The Baghdad air attacks provoked demonstrations of support for Saddam Hussein's regime in leading West Bank cities. In Ramallah, about 200 demonstrators waved Iraqi flags and posters of Saddam Hussein and chanted "Death to America and Long live Iraq." In Nablus, about 1,500 protesters burned American and Israeli flags and pictures of U.S. President George W. Bush. Muawia al-Masri, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, urged Arab leaders not to welcome U.S. Secretary of State George Powell during his visit to the Middle East, slated for later this month. Support for Saddam Hussein's regime from the Palestinian public, evident a decade ago during the Persian Gulf War, has possibly been augmented recently by the Iraqi leader's decision to provide financial compensation to families of Palestinians killed in clashes with Israel. Outside the PA, Islamic leaders angrily denounced the British-American strike against Baghdad, noting that prior Western assaults against Hussein failed to topple his regime, while victimizing innocent civilians. Hatta Mohamad Ramli, a senior leader of the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, the country's biggest opposition party, called the air strikes "international hooliganism." In Pakistan, the Islamic political party Jamaat-e-Islami branded the actions the "worst kind of state terrorism." As American and British leaders issued statements clarifying the rationale for Friday's air strikes against Baghdad, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the measures will impede efforts to resolve tensions regarding Iraq. Putin's spokesman Alexei Gromov said that "such unprovoked actions do not help settle the situation regarding Iraq. © copyright 2000 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved END |