- BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - An Iraqi
vice president offered a unique solution to the U.S.-Iraq standoff: a duel
between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein.
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- Taha Yassin Ramadan said the duel could be held at a
neutral site and with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the referee.
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- Ramadan, wearing a green uniform and a black beret, made
his remarks without giving any outward sign that he was joking although
reporters who were present detected a note of irony in his voice.
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- "A president against a president and vice president
against a vice president and a duel takes place, if they are serious, and
in this way we are saving the American and the Iraqi people," Ramadan
told the Associated Press Television Network.
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- Iraq has two vice presidents, and Ramadan did not say
whether he or Taha Muhie-eldin Marouf would take on Dick Cheney.
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- Ramadan also said that his government was not concerned
by U.S. lawmakers' support of a congressional resolution that would authorize
President Bush to use military force against Iraq.
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- "We pay no attention to this issue," he said,
adding that approving such a resolution "makes no difference"
to Iraq.
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- Ramadan criticized U.S. efforts to delay the return of
U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq until the Security Council adopts tougher
measures that would give the inspectors broad new powers to hunt for weapons
of mass destruction and provide them with military backing.
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- He said such efforts were aimed at "hampering the
inspection process."
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- "They (the Americans) were surprised by the agreement
reached by Iraq and the United Nations. So their reaction was unbalanced,"
he said, referring to the deal in Vienna on Tuesday between Iraq and chief
U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix.
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- Under the agreement, Iraq agreed to an unconditional
return of the inspectors under the existing U.N. Security Council resolutions
and a 1998 agreement that put the so-called presidential sites - including
Saddam's palaces - off-limits to surprise visits.
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- At the United Nations, the United States was pursuing
a tough resolution that would end the exemption for those sites, give Iraq
30 days to compile an "accurate, full and complete" inventory
of all aspects of its weapons programs - and provide U.N. inspectors military
backing to carry out their search.
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- But the three other veto-wielding members of the Security
Council - Russia, China and France - have said they are not ready to authorize
force before inspectors have time to test Iraq's willingness to comply.
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of The Associated Press.
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