JEDDAH/RIYADH, 15 February 2003 — Many Saudi and expatriate families were home yesterday evening when they would normally be out, watching the UN inspection team’s weapons report to the United Nations.
Dwight Tulare, 30, an American businessman who grew up in Saudi Arabia with a Saudi family, spoke to Arab News in Jeddah.
“I feel that based on the report Hans Blix gave to the United Nations, Iraq seems to be cooperating. Therefore the US is not justified in moving toward war, as there is no substantial evidence of a violation of the UN mandate.
“Bush is using his ‘war on terrorism’ excuse, and weapons of mass destruction excuse, and regime change excuse in a desperate bid to go to war against international advice. US-European relations are quickly changing and are at their biggest gap in years, and Bush doesn’t seem to care.”
“There is no justification for a war now and there was no justification before,” said Mohammed Rida Al-Banoon, 46, a Saudi limousine driver.
“And there will be no justification in the future. Bush is going to lie, manipulate and bully his way into an attack on Iraq. The decision has already been made in his mind and no one is going to stop him. This whole UN inspection team and their findings are inconsequential.”
“Perhaps the only way war in Iraq can be averted is if Hans Blix and his team keep asking for extensions indefinitely,” argued Nahid Al-Mansour, 28, a Saudi school teacher.
“I don’t think Bush will go against the UN’s wishes.”
Marwan Al-Ghamdi had a prophetic reaction to what he saw today.
“Was anyone expecting Blix to say that weapons of mass destruction would be found?” he asked. “Of course not. This is all a ploy. Bush is going to go to war one way or another.
“When Bush does attack, and it will be against UN advice, he will find himself alone. If the US attacks against UN advice, will a UN coalition be put together to attack the US just as the US attacks Iraq. If they do and the Arab League puts together a multinational force, together they can perhaps teach the American leadership the lesson it needs to learn. This could spark World War III and that would be the end of the US as a superpower.”
In Riyadh, Nasr Al-Majali, a senior Jordanian journalist working for Elaph.com., an Arabic e-journal published in London, said Blix appeared to be under US pressure and also UN secretary general Kofi Annan when he accused Iraq of not coming clean on the weapons of mass destruction.
He said British Prime Minister Tony Blair was still unable to produce tangible evidence on Iraq’s WMD program, even though he had contacted the CIA and Britain’s own intelligence agency, MI6, in this regard.
Since Blair is under pressure for his own political survival to muster the support of France and Germany in backing a second UN resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, he would be using the EU summit on Monday to try to persuade his reluctant EU partners to change their stance, Al-Majali added.
Mustafa Shuaib, a Sudanese political editor at Al-Eqtesadiah newspaper, said the fact that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was cooperating with the weapons inspectors only under pressure raises a question mark over the extent and sincerity of his cooperation.
This is the message that Blix delivered at the Security Council when he said: “If they (weapons of mass destruction) exist, they should be presented for destruction. If they do not exist, credible evidence to that effect should be presented.”
He did not believe that Blix had caved in to US pressure.
