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S P E C I A L: The Standoff with Iraq Baghdad celebrates 'victory'
November 20, 1997
Web posted at: 10:26 a.m. EST (1526 GMT)BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- For weeks, anti-U.S. demonstrations organized by President Saddam Hussein's government have been a regular feature in Baghdad. With word that the showdown over arms inspectors apparently had ended, the mood at Thursday's staged protest seemed victorious.
"America has failed in its conspiracy!" shouted demonstrators -- most of them members of state-run unions and other official organizations -- outside the National Assembly.
"Of course Iraq was victorious," one demonstrator told CNN. "We didn't care if America attacked us or not."
CNN's Peter Arnett reports on reactions in Iraq 2M/28 sec./320x240
1.1M/28 sec./160x120
QuickTime movieThe assembly, Iraq's parliament, approved the plan worked out with Russia and first announced in Geneva. It allows U.N. arms monitors including Americans to return to Baghdad and resume inspections, apparently defusing a three-week-old crisis.
In return, Russia will work to lift U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
"Our diplomacy has succeeded in reaching a first step -- the beginning of the end to lift the embargo," parliament member Mohamed Al-Adhami told CNN.
A statement broadcast on Iraqi television and radio praised Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov for authoring a deal that took Iraq's grievances into account.
"Iraq has accepted the return of U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspectors, including the Americans," said the statement, issued after a meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council and officials of the ruling Baath party, chaired by Hussein.
The Iraqi public has been preparing for a possible military confrontation over its government's defiant stand. But as news of the agreement circulated around Baghdad, government-run television broadcast patriotic songs and pictures of previous national celebrations.
Iraq charges that the United States has been exploiting the arms inspectors issue to prolong sanctions and topple Hussein.
Correspondent Peter Arnett contributed to this report.
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