The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Saturday, April 19, 2003, Chandigarh, India

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USA seeks Iraqi help on WMD

Australian Special Forces soldiers stand guard next to one of the 51 Iraqi Air Force Mig fighter aircraft found under camouflage netting at an undisclosed location in Western Iraq on Friday.

Samir Adbul Aziz al-Najim is shown on this four of clubs playing card issued by the US military. One of the top 55 leaders of the Saddam Hussein regime, he was handed over to coalition forces by Iraqi Kurds near Mosul in northern Iraq, US Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told a news briefing at the US Central Command headquarters in Qatar. Najim, captured on Thursday night, was a Baath Party regional command chairman for East Baghdad and is listed as number 24 on the US most-wanted list.

Former US Secretary of State George P. Shultz talks during an interview in San Francisco on Thursday. When asked if the contract just awarded by the Bush Administration to the Bechtel Group to rebuild Iraq was the result of the group's close ties to the administration, Shultz said Bechtel had also won contracts in the past when the Democrats were in office. Shultz is on the board of directors of Bechtel.
— Reuters photos

Baghdad, April 18
The USA says it needs the help of Iraqis to find Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction as a diplomatic row brewed between Washington and the United Nations over economic sanctions.

With diplomacy once again taking centre stage following Saddam’s downfall, Iraq’s neighbours meet in Saudi Arabia later today to discuss the country’s future and what the crushing US victory means for them.

In Baghdad itself, the US military said it hoped to restore at least some electricity to the battered Iraqi capital and the FBI promised to send in agents to help recover priceless treasures plundered from the city’s famed museum.

With all of Iraq now under US-led control, pressure is building on Washington to find banned chemical or biological weapons in Iraq - the ostensible reason for the war.

But US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he did not think American teams would find the weapons unless Iraqis knowledgeable about the arms programmes told them where to look.

“It is not like a treasure hunt where you just run around looking everywhere, hoping you find something,” he said in Washington. “I think what will happen is we’ll discover people who will tell us where to go find it.”

The military hope captured Iraqi officials will confirm their belief that Baghdad had outlawed weapons.

The US forces have drawn up a list of 55 wanted Iraqis, but have so far seized just three of them, including Saddam’s half-brother and reputedly his “banker in the West”, Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, who was arrested yesterday.

Saddam remains elusive although some US officials believe he might have died during three weeks of air strikes on Baghdad.

President George W. Bush has urged the United Nations to lift crippling, 13-year-old economic sanctions against Baghdad, but he faces an uphill task to get them dropped quickly as the issue raises loaded questions over who controls Iraq’s oil and, thus, who in effect runs the country.

UN sanctions banning most trade were imposed in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait and their removal is tied to Iraq being declared free of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

After long pressing for the sanctions to be eased, some diplomats, who were opposed to the US-led invasion, have now changed their tune and say the restrictions should stay in place until the UN certifies that Iraq is free of banned weapons.

“For the Security Council to take this decision, we need to be certain whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not,” said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

The Commander of the US Marines in Iraq, Major-Gen James Mattis, said that after a blackout lasting more than a week, some electricity would be restored to Baghdad today.

“Getting the water, the power, the trash back up, that’s absolutely critical,” he told Reuters.

As the mystery deepened over the disappearance of Saddam and most of his top officials, a US official said there were signs that Syria might be considering expelling Iraqi officials believed to have sought haven there.

Syria’s Foreign Minister is due to meet his counterparts from Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Bahrain in Saudi Arabia today at the first region-wide forum on post-war Iraq.

None of these countries were on good terms with Iraq during Saddam’s rule, but with a political vacuum opening at the heart of the volatile region,all now want a say in what comes next. Reuters

US delegation meets Advani
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 18
A US Congressional delegation yesterday met Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and discussed issues pertaining to global war against terrorism and especially India’s efforts to contain cross-border terrorism.

Emerging from the hour-long meeting, US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, who accompanied the delegation, told newspersons that issues relating to the global war on terrorism figured in the parleys.

India’s efforts to combat cross-border terrorism following the Nadimarg killings came up during the discussions, he said.

The delegation was led by Joseph Crowley, co-chairman of the Congressional caucus on India and Indian Americans and included Sheila Jackson Lee, Chris Bell and Kendrick Meek.

Mr Blackwill said the two sides also discussed the role and the importance of the India caucus in promoting Indo-US ties.

The US envoy replied in the negative when asked if the Iraq situation figured in the talks.