U.S. and British warplanes attacked antiaircraft batteries in southern Iraq on Thursday, the third raid of this kind this week, according to the U.S. Air Force. On Wednesday, AP reported that warplanes struck near Tallil, an estimated 170 miles southeast of Baghdad. The same site was attacked Monday.
Meanwhile, the White House declared Iraq must accept a return of UN arms inspectors. "The president stands strong and firm in his insistence that Saddam Hussein live up with the agreement that he himself made," Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for President George W. Bush, told reporters. Asked about any upcoming US decisions on possible steps to adopt in dealing with Iraq, Fleischer said: "No, nothing. There is nothing to report."
In a related development, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz rejected a "partial US implementation" of a key UN resolution on sanctions in talks with Russian officials aimed at averting a new UN sanctions regime. According to AFP, following talks with his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov, Aziz blamed Washington of not respecting UN Security Council resolution 687 which, he emphasized, links UN weapons inspections in Iraq to the lifting of an economic embargo against Baghdad.
"For seven and a half years, UN inspectors controlled and destroyed weapons as much as they wanted." Despite that, the second point was not respected, he told reporters. "We cannot agree with a partial implementation of the resolution in which the United States chooses to fulfil one part of the resolution and not the other," he conveyed. (Albawaba.com)
