IRAQ: Iraq said yesterday there was no point in allowing UN weapons inspectors into the country because an "insane, criminal" US administration was determined to attack and oust President Saddam Hussein.
"What purpose would there be for a goodwill gesture or an initiative for the return of spies?," Iraqi Vice-President Mr Taha Yassin Ramadan told reporters in Damascus, where he has been rallying Arab support for Iraq in its stand-off with Washington.
Mr Ramadan said the US administration, a senior member of which said on Wednesday that President Saddam must go even if he lets inspectors in, had already decided to attack Iraq.
"The US administration . . . says day and night that the issue is not related to whether the inspectors return or not, it has to do with changing the regime by force.
"This (inspectors) is an issue on which we shouldn't waste our time," Mr Ramadan said.
Iraq has not permitted UN arms inspectors, whom it accuses of espionage, back since they left ahead of a US-led bombing campaign on Iraq in late 1998.
The bombing was intended to force more co-operation with the inspections requirements imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
As Washington's war rhetoric mounts, Britain has said it may propose a deadline for Iraq to submit to inspections. Baghdad, meanwhile, has sought to add a united Arab front to a chorus of warnings against a US strike on Iraq.
Mr Ramadan told reporters in Damascus earlier yesterday that Arab governments should reflect the opinions of their citizens, who believe President Saddam's assertions that any US attack on one Arab country was an attack against them all. - (Reuters)