AMERICA WARNS SADDAM HUSSEIN OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS THREAT TO TARGET AIRBASES IN NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES

		February 17, 1999

AMERICA WARNS SADDAM HUSSEIN OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS THREAT TO TARGET AIRBASES IN NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES USED TO LAUNCH AIR OBSERVATION PATROLS OVER NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN IRAQ.
THE GULF STATES DESCRIBE THE IRAQI THREATS AS HOLLOW.
TURKEY TURNS DOWN BAGHDAD'S REQUEST THAT IT REFUSE PERMISSION TO WESTERN ALLIED AIRCRAFT TO FLY FROM INCIRLIK BASE.

The United States warned the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein against carrying out threats he has made to neighbouring states that he will target sites from which American and British planes set out to enforce the no-fly zone over northern and southern Iraq. The United States said that Saddam would face serious consequences if he did carry out his threats which, it considered, showed just how isolated the Baghdad regime is.

A spokesman for the American National Security Council, B.G. Crowley, said that Washington would continue to take all steps to contain Saddam Hussein and prevent him from threatening his neighbours. He made clear that the Iraqi threats would not cause the United States to swerve from fulfilling its obligations according to the resolutions of the Security Council. He added: 'We have made it clear to him [Saddam Hussein] that if he carries out any one of his threats, he will face serious consequences.'

American Foreign Secretary Madeleine Albright said: 'We have given a clear warning that if our forces or the states neighbouring Iraq are subject to any attack our response will be swift and decisive.'

These American responses came at a time when states members of the Gulf Cooperation Council condemned the latest Iraqi escalation represented in the threats to attack Gulf states, and made little of the importance and seriousness of these threats.

Gulf sources said that this sort of escalation, which consisted of adopting a menacing style and making threats, did not alarm the Gulf states but simply made Iraq more isolated from the Arab community as a whole. He added that the Gulf states could not prevent international monitoring of the no-fly zone in Iraq, as the international allied forces were present in the area to implement legitimate international resolutions.

In Riyadh, the Saudi press responded to Iraq's threats. Al-Nadwah newspaper said that: 'The only cure for this schizophrenia or split personality that we see in the political rhetoric threatening the Kingdom and Kuwait is to cut off the serpent's head and do away with the faction that rules Iraq by iron and fire and insists on spreading divisions through the region.'

Al-Riyadh newspaper described the Iraqi threats as 'hollow'. It said that these threats were 'part of the storm of madness of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and an indication that he has lost his mental balance, as the idea that it is within his scope to respond as he claims he will is clearly in the realm of the political comedies which he has become so expert at launching, and which only his supporters find credible.'

It also said: 'If this man is unable to put a hole in the tail-end of an aircraft flying over his own country's borders, he is certainly going through a moment of personal defeat.'

Okaz newspaper warned the Iraqi regime against continuing its policy of making threats against Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. It said: 'The response to these threats will be decisive, and the Kingdom will not spare any effort to do all that is required to protect its territories and people, and it has the full ability to teach the Iraqi regime a new lesson, the effects of which it will not be able to grasp for a long time, if this time it decides to risk coming up with such foolish nonsense again.'

In Kuwait, an official source at the Foreign Ministry described the Iraqi threats as 'barefaced and dangerous', and as 'reflecting again the hostile intentions of the Baghdad regime towards its neighbours and represents a continuation of its hostility towards Kuwait in 1990.'

The source said that the statements that had been made by Iraq "contained a direct and serious threat to the security and sovereignty of the state of Kuwait." The source requested the international community 'to condemn the aggressive behaviour of Iraq and to oblige Iraq to implement all relevant Security Council resolutions in order to bring security and stability to the region again.'

He added that the threats showed 'Iraq's determination to ignore the will of the Arab community, which is expressed in the statement issued by the Consultative Meeting of Arab Foreign Ministers in Cairo on 24 January of this year.'

The President of Iraq had delivered a statement in which he threatened to target the sites used as bases by American and British aircraft monitoring the implementation of the resolution to impose a no-fly zone over northern and southern Iraq.

Turkey at the same time refused an Iraqi request to put a stop to the observer missions being made by American and British aircraft over northern and southern Iraq by refusing permission for these planes to take off from Incirlik airbase in Turkey. Turkey instead urged Baghdad to stop protesting over the no-fly zone, which applies to Iraqi aircraft flying over northern and southern Iraq, and to stop trying to provoke an armed conflict with the United States.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevic told Iraq's deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz that his country had turned down Iraq's request during discussions that the two men held in Ankara. Ecevic also accused Baghdad of allowing fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, led by Abdullah Ocalan who had been arrested in Turkey few days ago in Kenya's capital Nairobi, to move in areas subject to the control of the Iraqi government; Ecevic gave evidence of that to Tarik Aziz and, at the same time, insisted that Turkey was trying to prevent the break-up of Iraq.