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BAGHDAD, April 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraqi Deputy
Prime Minister Tareq
Aziz has said that the United States will launch
military attacks
against Iraq even if Iraq allows the United Nations
arms inspectors
back into the country, the official Iraqi News Agency
(INA)
reported Thursday.
"Arms inspectors will not
prevent the United States from
committing a new aggression" because
the United States has publicly
admitted that its foreign policy aim is
to topple the Iraqi regime,
Aziz was quoted as saying during a meeting
with a European
delegation of activists late Wednesday
night.
Aziz noted that the United States unleashed
military attacks
against Iraq during 1991 and 1998 when U.N. arms
inspectors were
working in the country.
U.N. arms
inspectors withdrew out of Iraq on the eve of the U.S.
-British air war
against Baghdad in December 1998, and have since
been barred from
re-entering.
U.S. President George W. Bush has warned Iraq
to re-admit the
arms inspectors or face the possibility of fresh U.S.
military
onslaught.
"The United States will not be
able to convince most of the
countries in the world to ally with it to
commit a new crime
against Iraq," Aziz said, adding that Britain, a
staunch U.S.
ally, "is also facing public rejection to attack Iraq
again."
Rebuffing U.S. claims that Iraq is threatening
its neighbors,
Aziz said that "Iraq has re-established relations with
all
neighboring states, such as Iran, Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia,
and there is no one complaining of any Iraqi threats."
To avert any possible U.S. military attacks, Baghdad has made
overtures to neighboring and other Arab countries and there has
been a marked thaw between Iraq and its neighbors, especially
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Enditem
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