Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan accused late Wednesday U.N. inspectors of being "spies" for the United States and Israel, and of staging the intrusion into a presidential palace on Tuesday as a provocation that could lead to war.
"Their work is to spy to serve the CIA and Mossad," Ramadan claimed to a visiting delegation of Egyptian professionals.
Ramadan claimed to his all-Arab audience that the inspectors went to the palace hoping to provoke the Iraqis into refusing them entrance — something he said would be interpreted as a "material breach" of the U.N. resolution that mandated the inspections, and a cause for war.
The resolution includes "several land mines," Ramadan said, "and the aim is that one of them will go off." (Albawaba.com)