Iraq accuses US of double standards with North Korea

11.45am

BAGHDAD - Iraq accused the United States of double standards on Monday, contrasting the US military buildup in the Gulf with Washington's decision to use diplomacy to try to settle a nuclear arms crisis in North Korea.

Oil prices briefly visited two-year highs after the United States ordered more troops, aircraft and ships to the Gulf for a possible war against Iraq in the new year.

The United Nations Security Council tightened restrictions for imports allowed into Iraq under the oil-for-food programme as UN weapons inspectors scrutinised more suspect sites in Iraq, including a water treatment facility south of Baghdad and a communications centre near the Iranian border.

The Al-Thawra official newspaper, mouthpiece of President Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party, said it was unfair that Washington was preparing to go to war with Iraq which was cooperating with UN arms inspectors, but seeking a peaceful solution in North Korea, which had just expelled them.

Pyongyang ordered inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday to leave the country and said it would reopen a reprocessing laboratory which can produce weapons-grade plutonium.

"Look how Washington deals with the two situations. How it threatens to invade Iraq which has no weapons of mass destruction ... at the same time the US administration is saying it wants a peaceful end to the crisis with North Korea," al-Thawra said.

The paper said Baghdad was cooperating fully with the UN arms experts, who had found no evidence of banned weapons.

"So why do America and Britain continue to threaten it? Is it because Iraq is an Arab country? Or because Iraq is an oil country? Or because the Zionist lobby inside the US administration wants to settle old scores?" the paper wrote.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered thousands of troops, dozens of strike aircraft and probably two more aircraft carrier battle groups to the Gulf, starting early next month.

The deployment would at least double the 50,000 US military personnel already near Iraq.

But US Secretary of State Colin Powell said President George W. Bush, now facing North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship, had taken no decision on whether to attack Iraq.

He discouraged talk of crisis or conflict with North Korea, saying Washington was ready to give diplomacy a chance.

US light crude futures in New York recovered from feverish trading to end down US$1.32 ($2.54) at US$31.40 a barrel after falling as low as US$31.14 from a two-year peak of US$33.65 early in the day.

London Brent crude ended down 50 cents at US$29.66 a barrel in a shortened session.

The two-year high came on fears that a US attack against Iraq early next year could further sap global supplies already hit by a long strike in Venezuela. Brent hit US$31.02 a barrel, a 15-month high.

Prices slid as a senior delegate from a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said Opec is sure to raise oil output quotas by at least 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) unless prices drop heavily in the next two weeks.

Opec, which controls two-thirds of world crude exports, has pledged to plug any supply shortfall due to the strike in Venezuela, the cartel's third biggest producer.

The 15-nation UN Security Council, at the urging of the United States, approved a resolution on Monday expanding the list of civilian goods that Iraq cannot import without prior council approval.

Iraqi envoy Mohammed S. Ali said the resolution would aggravate the suffering of the Iraq people, which could be eased only by a lifting of UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of neighbouring Kuwait.

The United States and co-sponsor Britain shook off criticism of the resolution, saying it would streamline the UN review process while providing fresh safeguards against imports of goods with possible military as well as civilian applications.

With the prospect of war in Iraq, the United States won approval for a number of additions to the list, ranging from drugs to protect Iraqi soldiers from poison gas and anthrax to boats like those used to attack a US warship two years ago.

Inspectors from the IAEA and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) visited more sites on Monday, checking a heavily guarded facility which produces metal moulds and tools in a Baghdad suburb, which previous inspectors listed as producing modified Scud missiles.

Iraqi officials said IAEA and UNMOVIC experts also visited a health laboratory in central Baghdad and a site in the Abu Ghreib area, while a communications group headed towards Mundharieh, northeast of Baghdad, near the Iranian border.

The Iraqi officials said experts inspected a water treatment facility on the Euphrates river, south of the Iraqi capital.

Powell said Washington, which has described Iraq, North Korea and Iran as members of an "axis of evil", was providing intelligence to the inspectors and expected to see results soon.

But the 200 searches inspectors have so far carried out have apparently uncovered no trace of the chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programmes Washington insists Iraq is pursuing.

Iraq on Saturday provided a list of more than 500 scientists associated with its nuclear, biological, chemical and ballistic weapons programmes.

Inspectors have begun interviewing some scientists but one of Saddam's top advisers said on Monday Washington was trying to lure some of them out of the country to give false information in return for financial gain.

"This has happened to a number of those who have left to get financial gains and residency permits, they said things America wanted to hear," scientific adviser Amir al-Saadi said.

He said they would give false information on Iraqi arms programmes, providing the United States with a "material breach" of last month's UN Security Council resolution.

Declaring Iraq in material breach could set the stage for a military attack by the United States and any allies.

US defence officials said Saudi Arabia had agreed to let the United States use its air bases and an important operations centre at Prince Sultan air base outside Riyadh.

But Saudi Arabia questioned on Monday a report in the New York Times that it had agreed to allow the United States to use its air bases in a possible war with Iraq.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: Iraq