Iraq accused the United States of double standards Monday, contrasting the U.S. military buildup in the Gulf with Washington's decision to use diplomacy to try to settle a nuclear arms crisis in North Korea. Oil prices hit two-year highs after the United States ordered more troops, aircraft and ships to the Gulf for a possible war against Iraq in the new year.
U.N. weapons inspectors scrutinized more suspect sites in Iraq, including a water treatment facility south of Baghdad and a communications center near the Iranian border. The Al-Thawra official newspaper, mouthpiece of President Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party, said it was unfair that Washington was preparing to go to war with Iraq which was cooperating with U.N. arms inspectors, but seeking a peaceful solution in North Korea, which had just expelled them.
Pyongyang ordered inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Friday to leave the country and said it would reopen a reprocessing laboratory which can produce weapons-grade plutonium. ``Look how Washington deals with the two situations. How it threatens to invade Iraq which has no weapons of mass destruction...at the same time the U.S. administration is saying it wants a peaceful end to the crisis with North Korea,'' al-Thawra said.
The paper said Baghdad was cooperating fully with the U.N. arms experts, who had found no evidence of banned weapons. ``So why do America and Britain continue to threaten it? Is it because Iraq is an Arab country? Or because Iraq is an oil country? Or because the Zionist lobby inside the U.S. administration wants to settle old scores?'' the paper wrote.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered thousands of troops, dozens of strike aircraft and probably two more aircraft carrier battle groups to the Gulf, starting early next month. The deployment would at least double the 50,000 U.S. military personnel already near Iraq. But Secretary of State Colin Powell said President Bush, facing the distraction of North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship, had taken no decision on whether to launch an attack on Iraq.
He discouraged talk of crisis or conflict with North Korea, saying Washington was ready to give diplomacy a chance.
OIL PRICES SURGE
Oil prices charged higher Monday as traders bet on a possible military strike on Iraq and supplies from OPEC nation Venezuela remained choked by a 29-day-old strike. U.S. light crude futures in electronic trade set a two-year high of $33.17 a barrel and by 1200 GMT were up 37 cents from Friday at $33.09. London Brent crude added 51 cents to $30.67 a barrel, a 15-month high.
Gold traded around $350 an ounce, near a six-year high on growing fears of war and a floundering U.S. dollar. Inspectors from the IAEA and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) visited more sites Monday, checking a heavily guarded facility which produces metal molds and tools in a Baghdad suburb, which previous inspectors listed as producing modified Scud missiles.
Iraqi officials said IAEA and UNMOVIC experts also visited a health laboratory in central Baghdad and a site in the Abu Ghreib area, while a communications group headed toward Mundharieh, northeast of Baghdad, near the Iranian border. The Iraqi officials said experts inspected a water treatment facility on the Euphrates river, south of the Iraqi capital.
Powell said Washington, which has described Iraq, North Korea and Iran as members of an ``axis of evil,'' was providing intelligence to the inspectors and expected to see results soon. But the 200 searches inspectors have so far carried out have apparently uncovered no trace of the chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs Washington insists Iraq is pursuing. Iraq Saturday handed over a list of the names of more than 500 scientists associated with its nuclear, biological, chemical and ballistic weapons programs.
Inspectors have begun interviewing some scientists but one of Saddam's top advisers said Monday Washington was trying to lure some of them out of the country to give false information in return for financial gain. ``This has happened to a number of those who have left to get financial gains and residency permits, they said things America wanted to hear,'' scientific adviser Amir al-Saadi said.
He said they would give false information on Iraqi arms programs, providing the United States with a ``material breach'' of last month's U.N. Security Council resolution. Declaring Iraq in material breach could set the stage for a military attack by the United States and any allies.
U.S. defense officials said Saudi Arabia had agreed to let the United States use its air bases and an important operations center at Prince Sultan air base outside Riyadh. But Saudi Arabia questioned Monday a report in the New York Times that it had agreed to allow the United States to use its air bases in a possible war with Iraq.
More Information on Sanctions Against Iraq
More Information on the Iraq Crisis
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