Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 16, 1993 TAG: 9301160088
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
FACE-OFF WITH IRAQ NOT OVER
Tensions between the U.S. and Iraq grew Friday evening as United Nations officials demanded that Saddam Hussein guarantee the safety of U.N. flights into his country.Earlier Friday, President Bush demanded that Iraq agree by 4 p.m. EST to permit flights of U.N. inspectors into Baghdad. Less than an hour before that deadline, Iraq said it would permit the flights but claimed it could not protect them.
Bush and U.N. officials rejected that statement.
"It is up to Iraq to guarantee the safety and security of our personnel," U.N. spokesman Tim Trevan said late Friday, expressing fear if U.N. personnel flew over Iraq without Baghdad's guarantee of their safety.
"Would you in those circumstances be prepared to get on the plane?" he asked a reporter. "If I am told that the weapons of Iraq are pointing at the plane, and if I am told that the government refuses to take responsibility not only for its citzens' actions but for its own actions . . . then I think we can quite clearly say that Iraq is not abiding by its obligations under Security Council resolutions."
U.S. military officials said they were ready to attack Iraq for the second time in four days if Bush gave the order, but Pentagon sources said they doubted there would be a quick attack.
U.N. officials said they would send renewed demands Friday night that Iraq guarantee safe and unconditional flights into Baghdad. The officials refused to speculate on the possibility of renewed allied attacks but indicated there would be no U.N. flights without Iraqi guarantees of safety.
Baghdad's statement Friday said U.N. flights into Iraq could take place through Monday, but added that responsibility for their safety "lies with the United States, Britain and France, whose warplanes are violating Iraqi airspace."
"That is just not acceptable," said a Bush administration official, who declined to be named.
The latest in a lengthening series of clashes between Iraq and the U.S.-led alliance began when Bush told reporters shortly after noon that Iraq had until 4 p.m. Friday to approve the U.N. flight plans. Representatives of the United States, Britain, France and Russia delivered the same message to Iraq's U.N. mission.
"The coalition partners are firm in demanding compliance with the United Nations resolutions," Bush said, adding that U.N. inspectors have "the right to fly U.N. aircraft into that country at any time."
He ducked a question on whether he was prepared to launch a second military strike, but implied the allies were considering it. "Sufficient warnings have been granted and they know what they must do," Bush said as he headed for his final weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md.
President-elect Clinton, who takes office Wednesday, endorsed Bush's demand a short time later. "If Saddam Hussein doesn't comply, he risks the consequences," said Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos.
For the past week, Baghdad had said U.N. inspectors would have to fly into Iraq aboard chartered Iraqi aircraft. A team of about 60 U.N. inspectors has been awaiting permission to fly into Iraq for the past week, and could arrive in Baghdad as soon as today if Iraq and the allies can agree on the details.
The U.N. experts are inspecting various Iraqi armament facilities to ensure that Saddam destroys his longer-range missiles and nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons capabilities.
Through the diplomatic sparring match, Iraq kept up its tough rhetoric. "The U.S. administration has given Iraq only one choice, that is the choice to go to war," the government newspaper al-Jumhouriyah said in a front-page editorial Friday.