Iraqi Official Storms Out of ‘Dirty Swamp’ of Arab Talks

After failing to achieve a blanket denunciation of U.S.-British airstrikes, Iraq’s chief diplomat stormed out of a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers here Sunday and angrily accused fellow Arab states of bowing to the dictates of Washington.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf expressed bitterness that the long-sought meeting, called to forge an Arab consensus on U.N. sanctions and U.S. military actions against Iraq, had fallen short of Baghdad’s hopes in almost every particular.

Instead of a statement condemning U.S. policies and calling on Arab states to unilaterally abrogate the U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the Arab foreign ministers’ draft merely expressed “sorrow” about military action while urging Iraq to cooperate with U.N. efforts to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction.

The draft statement also suggested that Iraq should behave better toward its neighbors, especially Kuwait, and that sanctions could be lifted only in a “timely” fashion.

In response, Sahaf said the statement would be taken by the United States as an encouragement to mount further military strikes. “The U.S. . . . will say the Arabs failed to provide a unified Arab position,” he predicted.

Tensions between Iraq and the United States have remained high since last month’s air campaign by the Western allies, as Iraq has stepped up challenges to U.S. and British aircraft patrolling over northern and southern sectors of the country. In the latest clash, U.S. military spokesmen said, American warplanes attacked two surface-to-air missile sites in northern Iraq on Sunday, the second straight day that U.S. jets had fired at missile sites, and then returned safely to base.

In Cairo, Sahaf charged that a Saudi-led clique within the Arab League had sabotaged Iraq’s interests and pushed through an “unbalanced” statement against the wishes of the majority of the 22 member states.

“I walked out because I didn’t want to be mixed up in this dirty swamp,” Sahaf told journalists.

According to a draft obtained by Reuters news agency, the foreign ministers’ statement urged Iraq to implement United Nations resolutions on weapons inspections, which are crucial to any lifting of sanctions. It also called on Iraq not to take any provocative actions toward its neighbors, including Kuwait.

“The ministers expressed sorrow and displeasure over the military option against Iraq. They called for diplomacy and adoption of Security Council resolutions,” the draft said.

It also said the ministers “expressed total solidarity with the Iraqi people and their suffering from the embargo and stressed there should be international efforts to lift it.”

After the Operation Desert Fox bombings in December, officials in Iraq had hoped to parlay widespread anger in the Arab world into a swift, formal statement of support for Iraq from the Arab League. But at Saudi Arabia’s urging, the gathering of foreign ministers was postponed for a month.

In the view of many analysts in the region, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein overestimated the extent of sympathy in other Arab capitals for his position and overplayed his hand when he began urging the overthrow of Arab governments that had cooperated with the U.S.-British strikes.

Recent statements in the Iraqi parliament and by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz that appeared to question Kuwait’s borders also stiffened opposition to Hussein’s regime.

Mohammed Sayed Said, a political scientist at Egypt’s Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said the results of Sunday’s meeting showed that the majority of Arab countries remain suspicious of the Iraqi regime despite some shifts toward reconciliation.