Washington increased pressure on Syria last month, immediately after the fall of the Ba’athist regime in Baghdad. Although White House sources privately denied that there were any plans for further military action against other regimes in the region
As American and British forces ‘mop up’ the pockets of resistance while ‘cruising’ through Baghdad, the protest and anger generated before and during the war are taking on a new dimension that may not be so easy to deal with as Saddam’s regime...
When the US and British leaders, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, decided to meet at Camp David on March 26, they probably imagined that the war would be close to over by then. They would not have expected to have to discuss Iraq’s unexpectedly stubborn resistance and the mounting casualties their own troops are suffering.
DR PERWEZ SHAFI, director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought in Pakistan, examines the regional and geo-strategic thinking behind the US’s plans to attack Iraq, in the context of both its drive for oil and its commitment to zionism
Egypt, having maintained a low profile over Iraq and avoided having high-level contacts with Ariel Sharon, is now blaming Saddam for sabotaging Mubarak’s efforts to prevent a US attack, and is also about to entertain Sharon at a summit.
George Bush senior, father of the US president, attacked Iraq in 1991 because Saddam Husain had dared to disrupt the order imposed on the Middle East (by the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916) by invading and occupying Kuwait.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussain must be wondering what more he can do to get off George Bush’s list of “evildoers” who are marked for destruction. He has allowed unimpeded access, even to his palaces, to the UN weapons-inspectors, who have found nothing suspicious so far, although that is unlikely to prevent an American attack.
In the decade since the US’s high-tech destruction of Iraq in 1991, the US has consistently talked of overthrowing Saddam Hussain while being happy to leave him in place as a useful enemy to have. Now there are signs that they may actually be preparing to replace him. KHALIL OSMAN reports.
The name ‘Gulf War’, used to define the conflict which began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and the subsequent American destruction of Iraq, is deeply unsatisfactory.
If the reports that Saddam Hussain has joined the exclusive club of the world’s billionaires, boasting an estimated fortune of $6 billion, are even partly true, he will then have even greater contempt for the Iraqi opposition-groups in exile whose proudest possessions are fax-machines and an expensive rented office in London provided by the US.
Iraqis have always suspected that the 1963 military coup that set Saddam Husain on the road to absolute power had been masterminded by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
