BBC NEWS | Monitoring | Media reports | Iraqi letter rebuts UN resolution

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri has issued Baghdad's first detailed rebuttal of UN Resolution 1441.

The lengthy submission - in a carefully written letter to the UN on 23 November - was broadcast in full on Iraqi state television.

It states that the resolution's real motive is "to create pretexts to attack Iraq under an international cover".

However, it maintains that Iraq had decided to deal with the resolution "despite its bad provisions to steer our people, the region, and the world away from the outbursts of evil and aggression, which are being played up by the extremists in the US administration".

'False and baseless'

Of the 22 objections raised in the letter to Resolution 1441, 12 relate to its preamble and the rest to the main body. The letter says, for example, that:

Iraq's alleged "non-compliance with Security Council resolutions" is "false and baseless" ... "It is Iraq, which has been subjected to aggression since 1991".

It rejects "the false impression" that the authorisation to use force to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait still stands ... "Iraq withdrew from Kuwait in February 1991 in full implementation of Resolution 660 (1990)."

It also rejects the preamble's expression of regret over Iraq's failure to submit a final and complete report on all aspects of its previous banned programmes.

It also rejects the allegation that Iraq did not co-operate fully and unconditionally with earlier arms inspection missions.

'Lies'

The letter expresses anger over the preamble's expression of regret that there had been no inspection activities in Iraq since December 1998. "This paragraph is a crime against history and the facts," it states.

It rejects the preamble's assertions about terrorism, human rights and Iraq's non-cooperation on the subject of Kuwaiti MIAs (missing in action) and property. "The truth is that it is Iraq which is being subjected to terrorism for more than 30 years by international and regional forces, which are headed, instigated and financed by the United States and Britain."

The letter also maintains that the Security Council has not fulfilled its obligations under Resolution 687 (1991) to make the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction and lifting the "all-out embargo" on Iraq.

It also accuses the UN of ignoring the "real dangers posed by the huge arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction" possessed by Israel.

US 'pressure and extortion'

Turning to the substance of the UN Resolution, Mr Sabri's letter makes a number of other points:

It rejects the UN's position that Iraq was still in material breach of its obligations under the Security Council resolutions. "This paragraph has deleted in one sentence, and without producing any proof, the whole record of Iraq's co-operation in implementing the council resolutions in eight years."

It maintains that the US, not Iraq, had prevented the return of the weapons inspectors "and used all kinds of pressure and extortion on the council members in order to issue Resolution 1441".

It states that some paragraphs of the resolution give Unmovic [the United Nations Monitoring and Verification Mission] and IAEA [the International Atomic Energy Agency] "unjustifiable arbitrary powers that are not in accord with their international position".

The letter also says the resolution "purposely distorts the picture of Iraq's co-operation" with the inspectors during past missions.

Ulterior motives

Mr Sabri's letter accuses the US of changing its tactics once it became clear that many countries were opposed to a military strike against Iraq.

The US, he writes, "has a long history of using the Security Council as a cover for its aggressive intentions against Iraq since 1990".

It concludes by stating that the points it set out "proved that that those who urged the UN Security Council to issue Resolution No 1441 have aims other than ascertaining that Iraq had not produced weapons of mass destruction."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.