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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