PRESIDENT Saddam Hussein trumpeted a new victory over the United States and Britain yesterday flying pilgrims home from Saudi Arabia in defiance of the no fly-zone" in an open attempt to exploit divisions amongst Gulf War allies. Ignoring US warnings.
Helicopters fly for the second day running to the Iraq-Saudi border to bring home Iraqis from the haj to Mecca.
On Monday the US urged Iraq to stay out of the zone or lace retaliation. But yesterday President Clinton said only that the ban on flights would be maintained.
We support people in exercising their religious liberties. . . But we don't want to see religion used and distorted in a way to try to avoid international obligations," he said. -We intend to continue to observe the no-fly zone and continue to support the embargo until he [President Saddam Hussein] lives up to the conditions of United Nations resolutions."
Britain, whose aircraft jointly patrol the zone, echoed the US line in an equally cautious response.
Diplomats fear that Iraq will try to build on this latest success by further acts of defiance, knowing that France and Russia are already unhappy with the maintenance of sanctions against Iraq.
Two former top US officials, Mr Zbigniew Brzezinski and Mr Brent Scowcroft, called this week for the UN to allow increased sales of Iraqi oil, saying that the suffering of ordinary Iraqis under sanctions was eroding international support for the embargo.
Iraq's ambassador to the UN, Mr Nizar Hamdoun, insisted his country was not seeking a confrontation. But Baghdad's actions seemed designed to expose and exploit reluctance to enforce restrictions imposed in the days leading up to the Gulf War.
One Washington-based foreign policy expert, Mr Sahy Sadowski, said. The pilgrims flights are the latest in a long line of clever ploys by Mr Saddam to pressure the US. Every time Saddam uses these tactics he is attempting to exhaust a little more the US's military and political influence in the region."
The US complained vigorously about a flight on April 9th, which took more than 100 elderly Iraqi to Saudi Arabia for the haj, but other members of the UN Security Council could not be persuaded to deliver even a mild rebuke.
Like the no-fly zone in northern Iraq, the ban on Iraqi, aircraft in the southern zone was initially described by the US and Britain as means of protecting Iraqi civilian.
Shia Muslims in the south, and Kurds in the north from repression. In practice, however, it have also been used to punish Iraq.
Last autumn the southern zone was extended to a line just south of Baghdad in response to Iraq deploying ground troops to support one Kurdish faction against another. But France broke rank and refused to take part.
Yesterday, signalling a triumph the decision to send the helicopters was published on the front pages of all Baghdad's state-run-newspapers. Babel, the most influential, said America has to confess that it has failed and will fail in containing Iraq and bringing under its hegemony."