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- JERUSALEM, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu cautioned Iraq on Sunday against repeating its 1991 Gulf War
missile attacks on Israel, but declined to say whether he would retaliate
if Scuds slammed into the Jewish state. Asked on CNN what he would do if
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched missiles at Israel, Netanyahu said:
``First of all, I hope he doesn't fire. ``If he fires a missile or missiles
into Israel, I think that would be highly ill-advised on his part.'' Iraq
fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, killing one
person and causing extensive damage in the Tel Aviv area.
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- Information Indicates 'Target Date' for U.S. Attack 23
Feb Ma'ariv in Hebrew 10 Feb 98 p 3 Report by Yo'av Limor From Israeli
& Global News, 2-15-98 http://www.cmep.com/february15.htm
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- The United States will not attack Iraq before 23 February.
This transpires from information that has arrived over the last few days
from the U.S. Administration heads.
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- According to this information, the United States will
wait two more weeks for the solution of the crisis through diplomatic efforts.
If no solution is achieved by then, Iraq will be attacked. One of the reasons
for the long wait has to do with the Winter Olympics currently held in
Japan and the desire not to harm what is seen as a "demonstration
of international unity."
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- The information arriving from Washington indicates that
after the games end, the Americans will feel free to act, and it is possible
to understand from this that the target date for an attack is 23 February.
[passage omitted on international political efforts to solve the crisis]
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- Attack Could Worsen Arab situation--Mubarak
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- TOKYO, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak
warned in an interview published on Monday that the situation in the Arab
world could deteriorate if the United States attacks Iraq for failing to
comply with weapons inspections. In the interview with the Financial Times
in Cairo on Sunday, Mubarak expressed strong hopes for a diplomatic settlement.
``I think things will become much more serious with air strikes,'' he said.
Mubarak said public opinion in the Arab world has swung towards support
for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. ``This is very dangerous -- I cannot
stand against the whole weight of popular opinion,'' Mubarak said. ``You
will not find one (Arab) leader who will say publicly we support the air
strikes.'' The United States, he said, faces a credibility problem in the
Arab world, which criticises Washington for looking the other way even
though Israel -- like Iraq -- has an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
Mubarak said Saddam has read the situation very cleverly. ``This is not
1991,'' the Egyptian leader said, referring to the regional consensus against
Saddam's invasion of oil-rich Arab emirate Kuwait.
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- Iraq Says U.S. Attack Could Disrupt Arms Scrutiny
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- (Recasts with quotes from Iraqi presidential adviser)
Alistair Lyon BAGHDAD, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Iraq said on Sunday any U.S.
military strike could effectively cripple the U.N. monitoring system set
up to prevent it from making prohibited weapons. A U.N. technical team
held a first day of talks in Baghdad on delineating the extent of the eight
``presidential'' sites at the centre of Iraq's standoff with the United
Nations. Amer Hammoudi al-Saadi, an adviser to President Saddam Hussein,
challenged remarks made by Richard Butler, chairman of the U.N. Special
Commission (UNSCOM), in a Cable News Network interview, that U.N. inspectors
had found prohibited weapons wherever they had been given access in Iraq
and had helped get rid of them. ``The facts are that Iraq declared those
weapons, Iraq presented them to UNSCOM and Iraq destroyed them under UNSCOM
supervision,'' Saadi told a news conference. He said that Iraq and UNSCOM
had since 1994 put into place an elaborate monitoring system of Iraq's
dual-use facilities, and its exports and imports, which was functioning
perfectly. ``If I were in his (Butler's) place, I would be concerned that
military action would actually disrupt all this and result in losing track
of what's going on,'' he said. ``It seems that what the United States and
Britain are doing is undermining the work of UNSCOM without the chairman
of UNSCOM being aware of the extent of this,'' Saadi added. He said any
attack on Iraq was likely to prompt UNSCOM to withdraw its staff and ``practically
destroy'' the monitoring system, with its cameras, communications and other
equipment.
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- Iraq Call Again For Diplomatic Solution
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- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Vice President Taha Yassin
Ramadan told a Russian special envoy Sunday his country wanted a diplomatic
solution to the crisis over U.N. arms inspections. The Iraqi News Agency
(INA) quoted him as saying that any U.S. military strike against Iraq would
harm U.S. interests in the Middle East and beyond. ``Ramadan stressed that
Iraq was sincere and serious about finding a diplomatic solution to the
crisis manufactured by America,'' INA quoted the vice president as saying
during a meeting with Russia's envoy to Iraq, Viktor Posuvalyuk. ``It (Iraq)
is cooperating with all initiatives in this direction provided there is
no encroachment on Iraq's sovereignty and security,'' Ramadan said. But
he said that if the United States attacked Iraq,
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- Palestinians Hold Pro-Iraqi Protest In West
Bank
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- DHEISHEH, West Bank, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Chanting ``strike
Tel Aviv,'' several hundred Palestinians marched through a refugee camp
in the West Bank on Sunday in support of Iraq in its standoff with the
United Nations over weapons inspections. The protesters in the Dheisheh
camp, near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, burned U.S. and Israeli flags
and shouted slogans mocking U.S. President Bill Clinton over his White
House sex scandal. ``Clinton, master of America, go look for Monica,''
the demonstrators chanted, alluding to the controversy over allegations
that Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern,
and told her to lie about it. The crowd took to the streets despite a Palestinian
Authority ban on such flag-burning demonstrations in which protesters have
called on Iraq to repeat its 1991 Gulf War Scud missile attacks on Israel.
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