Iraqi official rejects British plan
From Rym Brahimi
CNN
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Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri
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In a last-ditch diplomatic effort, Britain has offered a compromise to the U.N. Security Council that outlines conditions for Baghdad to avoid war. CNN's Richard Roth reports (March 13)
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri on Thursday rejected a British plan in the U.N. Security Council for Iraq to disarm, saying Britain and the United States are trying to get international cover to launch a war against his country.
"If the U.S. administration sticks to international law and listens carefully to the world public opinion and to the opinion of its own people, it should not embark on any aggression against Iraq," Sabri said.
"If it respects Security Council resolutions and the United Nations Charter, it should not embark on any aggression against Iraq because a planned aggression against Iraq is a serious violation -- flagrant violation to the United Nations Charter, to all Security Council resolutions and to the will of all nations around the world," he added.
Britain said Wednesday it would consider dropping a Monday ultimatum for Iraq to disarm if Security Council members accept a proposal to give Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein specific disarmament tasks to complete in a short amount of time.
The British proposals would require Iraq to meet a series of benchmarks, including handing over supplies of anthrax, or proving they were destroyed; allowing Iraqi scientists and their families to travel outside the country to be interviewed by inspectors; and accounting for unmanned aircraft that the United States and Britain allege can be used to spray chemical or biological weapons.
In an interview with Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based, Arabic-language TV news network, Sabri said the British benchmarks were conditions for war and not up for discussion.
He said the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and other Security Council countries, including some permanent members, assert that Resolution 1441 is workable. The council passed the resolution unanimously in November, sending U.N. weapons inspectors back to Iraq for the first time since 1998.
Sabri said the resolution is being implemented and a new one isn't needed.
He told Al-Jazeera that inspectors have exposed lies by the U.S. and British administrations.
He pointed to the latest inspector reports, citing the one in which Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that allegations of Iraq trying to import uranium from Niger were based on forged documents.
