- BAGHDAD, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Iraqi newspapers on Monday mostly ignored the
agreement reached with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to defuse a crisis
over arms inspections.
-
- None reported directly that a deal had
been done, but Babel, Iraq's most influential daily, which is owned by
President Saddam Hussein's son Uday, hailed it in an editorial as a ``defeat
for the law of the jungle.''
-
- ``The agreement with Iraq to solve the
current crisis between Baghdad and the (U.N.) Special Commission reflects
that the will of the international community, which rejects the logic of
war and aggression, was stronger than the American law of the jungle,''
Babel said.
-
- The United States and Britain had threatened
to attack Iraq to force it to give the commission, charged with destroying
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, unlimited access to any sites where
it suspects prohibited weapons may be hidden.
-
- ``The accord has shown the ability of
the Iraqi and United Nations leadership to solve a most difficult and serious
crisis manufactured by the United Nations between Iraq and the Special
Commission,'' the paper added.
-
- Babel also lashed out at U.S. Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright, calling her ``the ugly old woman.''
-
- The Pulse of Youth weekly said Iraq had
sought to ease Annan's mission so that he would not return empty-handed.
``But the spectre of war in the region remains for the simple reason that
Washington wants Annan, just like his predecessor (Javier) Perez de Cuellar,
to act like a postman carrying a letter to Iraq and returning with the
same letter,'' it said.
-
- Perez de Cuellar visited Baghdad on an
abortive peace mission just before the outbreak of the 1991 Gulf War, in
which a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait. ^REUTERS@
|