War of Words Heats Up Among Arab Nations

Iraq stepped up denunciations of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on Sunday as part of an emerging tactic to discredit its two chief critics within the Arab world by portraying them as traitors and U.S. puppets.

Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf said at a news conference in Baghdad that hundreds of strikes against Iraq during December’s four-day U.S.-British air campaign were launched from Saudi and Kuwaiti airspace, making the two Arab states full participants in the “aggression.”

With the Islamic holy month of Ramadan coming to an end next week, raising fears in the region of renewed U.S.-British airstrikes, Baghdad is striving for an Arab League summit that would come out with a strong statement of sympathy for Iraq.

But Kuwait and Saudi Arabia--the two states that suffered most from Iraqi actions in the 1991 Persian Gulf War--have been Baghdad’s most implacable foes within the Arab world and have worked to prevent its rehabilitation by other Arab states.

With its latest round of propaganda attacks, Iraq appears to be trying hard to pressure the two governments to back away from Washington, or, failing that, at least to blunt their influence among other Arab states.

There are signs, however, that the harsh rhetoric is having the opposite effect, hardening the resolve in the Gulf against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime. The regime has been strongly criticized in official newspapers, and a commentary Sunday by the official Saudi news agency openly called for Hussein’s overthrow.

“Iraq needs a revolution,” it said, offering a litany of the Iraqi leader’s offenses, including thousands of murders and cases of torture of Iraqis and the wiping out of entire villages in the north when Kurds there resisted Hussein’s rule.

At his news conference, Sahaf focused attention on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, calling their leaders “criminals” and saying they will be held accountable by Iraq for the damage inflicted during last month’s military campaign, when U.S. planes and cruise missiles and British warplanes pounded Iraq for four successive nights. Sahaf said 492 cruise missiles were fired from or passed through Kuwaiti airspace during the campaign and 77 air attacks were launched from Kuwaiti territory, while 146 air attacks were launched from Saudi Arabia.

This proves that both Arab states “participated directly and effectively in the aggression,” he said.

In addition to their cooperation during Operation Desert Fox, both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have allowed bases on their territory to be used for U.S. and British aircraft enforcing the southern “no-fly” zone in Iraq, one of two such zones imposed by Western powers after the Gulf War.

Recently, Iraq has made a point of challenging the southern no-fly zone, and the similar zone in the north, by sending planes into proscribed airspace and firing surface-to-air missiles at allied aircraft.

Sahaf vowed that Iraq will continue to resist the overflights by allied aircraft because they violate Iraq’s sovereignty. “We have to defend our country,” he said.

In attacking Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Sahaf was echoing the tough line taken by Hussein last week, when he urged the Arab “masses” to overthrow the “throne dwarfs” who rule them. Hussein did not mention which rulers, but his allusion to Western defilement of Islam’s holy places clearly indicated Saudi Arabia.

During a weekend session, Iraqi parliament members also turned up the heat on Kuwait, particularly, stating that Iraq would be justified in rescinding its 1994 recognition of Kuwait’s independence.

The declaration that parliament adopted Sunday stopped short of withdrawing recognition of Kuwait, but it urged Hussein to continue to stand up to the U.N. Security Council and to cease to recognize all the “unjust resolutions” against Iraq adopted by the world body.

The maneuvering for influence is likely to continue until a scheduled Jan. 24 meeting in Cairo of Arab League foreign ministers. The meeting will consider calls for a full Arab League summit to rehabilitate Iraq and condemn U.S. military action.

As Sahaf spoke, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional grouping of six Gulf states, met in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, to try to achieve a common stance ahead of the Jan. 24 meeting.

The GCC reportedly is split between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which want to maintain pressure on the Iraqi regime, and the United Arab Emirates, which opposes any further U.S. military action and wants to relax sanctions. The other GCC members are Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.