Saddam Rattles His Saber

A T H E N S, Greece, June 18 -- As the United Nations debates an overhaul of sanctions against his embattled country, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's saber rattling against the United States appears to have reached a fever pitch.

While successfully dodging the U.N.-imposed sanctions against Iraqi oil exports, Saddam and his two sons and heirs, Qusay and Uday, have been talking and acting as though Baghdad was actually preparing for a new armed confrontation with the West.

On Sunday, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations told U.S. television that Baghdad was offering a reward to Iraqi military officials for shooting down allied aircraft patrolling Iraq's "no-fly zones."

The declaration came amid growing border tensions with Saudi Arabia — an important Arab ally of the United States — and Iraqi threats to reject the new British proposed "smart sanctions" currently being debated in the United Nations.

The new "smart sanctions" are a British-U.S. proposal to ease restrictions on civilian imports to Iraq but toughen a ban on military-related goods. The proposal, to be decided by the U.N. Security Council by July 3, also aims to put an end to smuggling and illegal trade between Iraq and its some of its neighbors.

Border Problems

Iraq's issues with Saudi Arabia — border incidents, oil and natural gas — are familiar to Middle East observers who remember the 1990 buildup to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.

Although largely unreported in the Western media, Saudi Arabia recently seized a disused Iraqi-owned oil pipeline running through Saudi territory for its own use.

According to the Saudi government-controlled media, the Arab kingdom plans to use the seized pipeline to transport natural gas across the desert to export markets after repairs and technical alterations have been carried out.

In a statement issued by the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) today, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official dismissed Saudi ownership claims of the pipeline, saying the pipeline "was built according to agreements signed between Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s." He also added that Iraq had paid more than $2 billion for its construction.