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Sout
h Africa will not be party to any military assault by a United
Nation (UN) member against another, but will rather continue to
seek a peaceful way out to a possible United States-led attack on
Iraq.
Reacting to the UN weapons inspectors report to the UN Security
Council sitting yesterday, South African ambassador to the UN
Dumisani Khumalo said last night that he remained
‘hopeful’ that the international community would halt
the US on its military tracks.
Chief UN weapon inspector Hans Blix told the council yesterday that
Iraq was not fully co-operative, while Mohamed ElBaradei, head of
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that his team
would need more time to further conduct its work, an arrangement
the US administration said it could not afford as it was running
out of time and patience.
Mr Blix also dismissed a 12 000-page declaration made by Baghdad to
the UN on its weapons programme and said there were signs that Irag
still had anthrax stocks.
President George W. Bush is today expected to use Mr Blix's
comments in his historic State of the Union Address as a basis for
a US military bash on Iraq, despite strong opposition from the
international community, especially other permanent Security
Council members comprising France, Germany, Russia and China.
In a interview with a Gauteng based radio station, Ambassador
Khumalo, who successfully managed to have UN sittings opened for
all its members, said the international community would not throw
its weight behind White House military assault on Iraq.
‘You can not send an inspection (to Iraq) and when they come
back to you to report and say we need more time to do this, and say
oh no I am tired of you ….you people should leave and I move
in,’ added Mr Khumalo.
Mr Khumalo also hinted that it took more than two years for the
IAEA to declare South Africa - which has been praised by inspectors
for voluntarily destroying its nuclear arsenal in 1993 - free of
weapons of mass destruction.
He explained that the UN resolution 1441, which resulted in the
inspection, also made provision for the world body to destroy
weapons of mass destruction should its mission found such, but not
war or regime change.
He added that should the UN give a green light to the Pentagon-led
military invasion on Baghdad, it would be setting a bad precedent
for all nations to choose any country or regime for attack.
However, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz promised that his
oil-rich nation would co-operate more in future, but warned that if
US troops invaded Iraq, they would be met with ‘bullets, not
flowers’ and would suffer heavy casualties.
Meanwhile, President Thabo Mbeki is on Saturday expected to meet
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a close ally of President Bush,
to discuss the prospect of war in Iraq.
The meeting between the two would take place few days after Mr
Blair and Mr Bush met in the US over the prospect of war.
As part of his crusade to prevent war in Iraq, Mr Mbeki, who is the
African Union (AU) and Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) chairperson, met
with French President Jacques Chirac and UN secretary-general Kofi
Annan in Paris over the weekend, where he expressed his views to
avert war, which is feared would throw the globe into a political
and economic crisis. –BuaNews
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