Saddam: 'Let's Deal'. |
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It’s been a cat-and-mouse game with Saddam since
the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But over eight of the past 12 months U.N. weapons
inspectors have been hampered and often prevented from looking for caches of dangerous and
illegal weapons. Saddam seems willing to bargain: inspections in return for easing of sanctions. The U.S. answer has been a resolute "no." Already, the United States has engineered a deal that permits Iraq to sell billions of dollars of oil, provided the proceeds are used for food, medicine and other humanitarian purposes. There is no inclination to give more relief to the Iraqi leader, despite a chorus of calls from Arab governments for more diplomacy with Baghdad. "We are dismayed that the work with the (U.N.) commission was stopped," Prince Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, said Sunday in Egypt. He called on Iraq to "rescind its decision" to bar weapons inspections. |