Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 20, 1993 TAG: 9301200199
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BAGHDAD, IRAQ LENGTH: Medium
BAGHDAD ENTREATS CLINTON
Seeking to defuse tensions, Iraq promised Tuesday to stop firing at allied aircraft in "no-fly" zones if bombing raids halt. The United Nations later accepted an Iraqi offer to allow unrestricted flights by weapons inspectors.Iraq said it wanted to give President-elect Clinton a calmer atmosphere to study the confrontation, which Iraq blames on personal animosity by President Bush for President Saddam Hussein.
The offers came after Iraq was attacked for a third straight day for failing to cooperate with the weapons inspections, failing to honor other terms of the Gulf War cease-fire, and firing at U.S. planes in two no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.
Iraq said three people were killed and three wounded Tuesday, raising the death toll to 46 since the air raids began last Wednesday.
The Vatican, meanwhile, promised to ask the United Nations at Baghdad's request to press for a dialogue to end the crisis.
Saddam Hussein's government said in a television broadcast that its unilateral cease-fire would take effect at 8 a.m. (Tuesday midnight EST). It called the step "a gesture of good will toward the new American president, Bill Clinton, and through him toward the American people."
An "open letter" to Clinton also appeared in a government newspaper from Saddam's chief spokesman. "You succeeded in the elections under the slogan of change," it said. "This means that when the American people chose you, they chose change and rejected current policies. Iraq is not an enemy of America and does not want to be."
After the United Nations accepted Iraq's pledge to let weapons inspection flights resume without conditions, Rolf Ekeus, the executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission responsible for destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, said "We will restart our flights as soon as the commission deems it feasible."
The flights have been delayed for two weeks because of a series of Iraqi conditions, including a now-abandoned demand that inspectors use only Iraqi planes.