IRAQ: Iraq said yesterday that the US used UN arms inspections in the 1990s as a cover for spying on it, and demanded a UN investigation into the allegations.
"Iraq demands the UN open an investigation into the United States' exploitation of missions by the UN to carry out spying activities that threatened \ security," Foreign Minister Mr Naji Sabri said in a letter to UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan.
Washington "exploited the UN inspectors to release its own political objectives and track the movements of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein", the letter said.
Mr Sabri said Iraq deserves "compensation" for the espionage and sabotage carried out by the UN inspection teams "to the benefit of US, British and Israeli military intelligence services". He identified the culprits as UNSCOM, the special team established after the 1991 Gulf War to verify Iraq had dismantled its programmes for weapons of mass destruction, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Mr Sabri's letter comes as Baghdad faces mounting pressure to readmit arms inspectors to stave off a possible US military strike.
US President Bush has pledged to topple President Saddam, whom he accuses of harbouring weapons of mass destruction, and will present his case in an address to the United Nations on September 12th.
UN arms inspectors withdrew from Iraq in December 1998 shortly before four days of heavy US and British air raids.
That aerial bombardment was triggered by a standoff between the UNSCOM inspection team and the Iraqi regime, which accused the UN inspectors of spying for Washington.
Since then, Baghdad has blocked the return of any new team, despite the UN's replacing UNSCOM with a new body, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission two years ago.
Iraq says it has dismantled any nuclear, biological or chemical weapons programme and demands that the UN lift the trade sanctions imposed in 1990 after it invaded its neighbour Kuwait. - (AFP)
Iraq said US and British warplanes attacked civilian targets in Anbar province, west of Baghdad yesterday but reported no casualties.
In Washington, the US military said its war planes attacked an air defence target in a "no-fly" zone of southern Iraq in the latest in an escalating series of exchanges. The attack comes amid speculation that President Bush might order a military invasion of Iraq to topple President Saddam.
The strike was the 35th this year by American and British jets patrolling no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.
The US jets launched precision-guided weapons against a command-and-control post at a military airfield 386 kms west of Baghdad, the US military's Central Command said. - (Reuters)