World

Saddam Plays The Arab Card

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 10, 1999 / 5:37 PM EST / CBS

A two-day session of Iraq's parliament opened a new diplomatic front to forestall U.S. air strikes by appealing to the Arab world while continuing to hurl defiance at the U.S., CBS News Correspondent Alan Pizzey reports.

Bellicose rhetoric against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia ended up as a watered down resolution urging Saddam Hussein to seek Arab support for an end to UN sanctions. And backing came from an unexpected quarter.

Saudi Arabia will reportedly seek UN resolutions to lift the embargo on food and medicine to Iraq. Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf welcomed the idea and then disclosed Iraq's next tactic.

"First they should stop in participating in the crime of aggression of imposing no-fly zone on south of Iraq," he said.

The Iraqis also gave details they said proved Saudi and Kuwaiti co-operation in last month's air strikes - a kind of oblique warning that Iraq is keeping score in case it decides to get even.

Saddam Hussein asked his cabinet Sunday about preparations for more air strikes, but Iraq denies trying to provoke the U.S. and Britain by defying the no-fly zones.

"We will continue to resist them. They are violating our sovereignty. They are threatening our independence, our security. We have to defend our country," said foreign minister Sahaf.

The tactic of using the effects of UN sanctions on the Iraqi people to win Arab support for an end to the embargo may be paying off.

Iraq's next move, it seems, is an appeal to the Arab world to see the no-fly zone as an affront to Arab dignity - a weapon the U.S. may find much harder to counter than a few aging Iraqi Migs.