Arab Intellectuals Seek Saddam Resignation

03/01/2003| IslamWeb

HIGHLIGHTSSaddam May Abdicate & Accept to be Replaced by One of His Sons But that Won't Change Nature of Regime: Badrakhan|| Idea of Asylum for Saddam First Floated by Ghassan Tueini, a Former Lebanese Statesman|| Germany Denies Iranian Press Report Washington Sought Bonn's Help to Seek Peaceful Removal of Saddam Through Russian Role|| Iraq Confirms Blix's Visit to Baghdad in Third Week of January|| STORYAbout a dozen Arab writers and lawyers plan to appeal to the Arab world to put pressure on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down to avert a war.

"We call upon public opinion in the Arab world to exercise pressure for the dismissal from power of Saddam Hussein and his close aides in order to stop a war that threatens catastrophe for the people of the region," said a copy of the appeal, obtained by Reuters and set to be published later this week.

"The immediate resignation of Saddam, whose rule over three decades has been a nightmare for Iraq and the Arab world, is the only way around further violence," it reads.

But Abdulwahab Badrakhan, deputy editor of the leading pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, said Saddam would not relinquish power.

"Saddam will keep gambling," Badrakhan said. "He might respond to pressure at the last moment by letting one of his sons take his place in the hope that the Americans would accept. But this would not change the nature of the regime."

OPEN LETTER

The idea of asylum for Saddam in return for his resignation was put forward late last year in an open letter to Saddam by Ghassan Tueini, a former Lebanese statesman and publisher of Beirut's influential An-Nahar daily.

The letter was entitled "resignation is more honorable."

About a dozen Arab thinkers, including Lebanese lawyer Chibli Mallat and Egyptian writer Yussri Nasrallah and Elias al-Khoury, an editor of An-Nahar, have seized on the proposal and were set to make their appeal.

They included their appeal in a draft blueprint for democracy in the Middle East and were trying to get Iraqi opposition leaders in London to sign it.

Iranian Daily Says Washington Favors Peaceful Removal of Saddam

The draft appeal came as Iran's Entekhab daily said the United States wanted to remove Saddam from power without the bloodshed or the billions of dollars required for a second Gulf war.

The German Foreign Ministry denied Entekhab's report that Germany's foreign minister told his Iranian counterpart by telephone that Washington sought a peaceful change with the help of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

U.N. Experts Push Ahead with Hunt for Iraq Weapons

U.N. weapons experts searched six suspect sites on Thursday, including a former uranium enrichment facility and an air force site, in the hunt for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. A senior Iraqi official said five weeks of intrusive U.N. inspections had proved that U.S. allegations that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction were baseless.

General Hussam Mohammad Amin said U.N. inspectors had visited 230 sites since they returned to the country on November 27 and had found nothing incriminating.

Iraq Confirms Blix Trip to Baghdad in Third Week of January

Amin confirmed that chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix would visit Baghdad in the third week of January, before he reports back to the Security Council on January 27.

He said the visit was "a positive indication on the road to removing any difficulties and implementing Security Council resolutions."

A U.N. spokesman said teams from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) drove on Thursday to six sites in central and northwest Iraq.

He said an UNMOVIC chemical team traveled 170 miles northwest from Baghdad to inspect the Al Hader State Company, previously known as Ash Sharqat Uranium Enrichment Facility. He said the site is now a chemical plant that produces nitric acid and ammonium nitrate.

PHOTO CAPTION

General Hossam Mohammed Amin talks during a news conference at the Ministry of Information in Baghdad Thursday Jan. 2, 2003. The general said all the inspectors' work so far proves Iraq's declaration that it has no weapons of mass destruction is credible and that the U. S. is 'lying' about the issue 'for political reasons.' (AP Photo/ Nasser Nas