Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, November 17, 1997, Page 7, Image 7

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    International News
Arab nations oppose U.S. military strike
Kuwait does not support
military action, but the
United States will go
it alone if necessary
By Jim Abrams
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Despite the
outward opposition of Arab coun
tries to a military strike against Iraq,
the White House is confident the
Arabs won’t stand in the way of any
U.S. action, President Clinton’s top
security adviser said Sunday.
Sandy Berger said that in any
case, the United States is ready to
go it alone if necessary.
The Arab nations, National Se
curity Adviser Berger said on
NBC's “Meet the Press,” under
stand the threat posed by Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein. “In
the end of the day, they are not go
ing to impede our ability to do
what’s necessary,” Berger said.
The administration cam
paigned hard among allies over
the weekend for support of strong
sanctions, and possibly military
retaliation, against Iraq for ex
pelling American members of the
U.N. weapons inspection team.
President Clinton on Saturday
spoke to Russia’s Boris Yeltsin,
France’s Jacques Chirac and
Britain’s Tony Blair, urging a unit
ed voice in confronting Iraq. Sec
retary of State Madeleine Albright
has been making the same pitch in
a tour of Persian Gulf states and
with the Russian foreign minister,
Yevgeny Primakov.
While support has been solid
for stronger U.N. sanctions against
the Baghdad government, France,
Russia and the Arabs have resisted
the idea of militarily punishing
Saddam for his latest challenge to
U.N. resolutions approved after
the 1991 Gulf War.
Foreign Minister Sabah al
Ahmed al-Sabah of Kuwait, which
Saddam occupied to spark the war,
said Sunday his country does not
support military action. The
Kuwaiti cabinet issued a statement
urging a diplomatic solution “so that
the area could be spared the dangers
of tension and instability, and the
Iraqi people would not be subjected
to more misery and suffering. ”
But on CBS’ "Face the Nation,”
Bill Richardson, the U.S. ambas
sador to the United Nations,
stressed that he was getting a dif
ferent message from Kuwait’s de
fense minister and that Albright
was successfully building support
in the region for U.S. policy.
“We have no doubt that at the
end of the day they will be support
ing whatever action we take,” Al
bright’s spokesman, James P. Ru
bin, added on ABC’s “This Week.”
Defense Secretary William Co
hen, also on ABC, said Kuwait and
Saudi Arabia might not face an im
mediate Iraqi invasion, but they
fully understand the danger to their
populations by Iraq’s chemical and
biological weapons programs.
“We intend to intensify that ap
prehension on their part” by mak
ing clear that Saddam has the ca
pability to unleash devastating
weapons of mass destruction if the
U.N. inspectors are kept out of the
country, he said.
The administration officials
stressed that in the near term the
emphasis will be on working out a
diplomatic solution. "Failing that,
we obviously would prefer if we
had to work multilaterally,” Berger
said. But he added that if the allies
don’t join a military action, “the
president has made very clear that
he has ruled out no option. ”
In the event of a military attack on
Iraq, Saddam’s Deputy Prime Min
ister Tariq Aziz told Time magazine
in an interview, various groups
sympathetic to the Iraqis “would be
in that mood” to carry out terrorist
attacks against Americans.
Asked about that, Defense Sec
retary Cohen said terrorist acts
against Americans launched at the
behest of Iraq “will be met with a
rather overwhelming response. ”
As to when a decision on mili
tary force will be made, Cohen
said, “There’s no artificial dead
line, but I think we’re all aware of
the ticking of the clock.”
Iraq’s ambassador to the U.N.,
Nizar Hamdoon, said on CBS and
on CNN’s “Late Edition” that Iraq
realizes that in the eyes of the Unit
ed Nations its expulsion of Ameri
can inspectors is unacceptable.
But he said Iraq has “been cor
nered and forced into this situation”
by the U.N. Security Council’s refusal
to lift crippling economic sanctions.
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