8A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NATION & WORLD
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2002
Arab states urge restraint in war with Iraq
The Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt — America's allies in the Arab world fear a U.S. strike on Iraq would thrust their already unstable region into chaos, and they and others are urging Baghdad to act to avoid war.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Tuesday that Arab leaders would not be able to contain outrage in the street in event of a U.S. attack on Iraq.
"There might be repercussions and we fear a state of disorder and chaos," Mubarak said at a question-and-answer session with Egyptian university students in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.
Mubarak, who sent his troops against Iraq a decade ago as part of the U.S.-led Gulf War coalition, said that this time he had warned the United States against attacking Iraq at a time when Palestinian-Israeli violence is roiling the Arab street.
President Bush has called for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to be toppled, saying his development of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons threatens the United States and the world in general.
Even as administration officials stress that no decision has been made, they have been stepping up talk about why such an attack is needed.
The administration has accused Baghdad of rebuilding its banned weapons programs and supporting terrorism and said it wants a "regime change."
Saudi Arabia, which during the Gulf War welcomed U.S. troops to protect it from Iraq, joined Mubarak in reiterating opposition to a U.S. attack. Saudi foreign policy adviser Adel al-Jubeir told CNN on Tuesday that the Saudis feel strongly that Saddam Hussein should be dealt with diplomatically.
"We don't believe that the case has been made in terms of a war against Iraq, and we don't think that people have thought through all the consequences," al-Jubeir said.
At the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League on Tuesday, diplomats said, permanent representatives clashed over an Iraqi request to include an Arab message of support for Iraq on the agenda of a regional foreign ministers meeting set for next week.
Arabs, though, also have reason to be wary of Saddam. He invaded a fellow Arab state, Kuwait, in 1990, setting off the 1991 Gulf War.
Many Arab governments wanted to include wording urging Iraq to accept the return of U.N. weapons inspectors, while Baghdad instead sought a firm Arab statement of solidarity, the diplomats said. In the end, they accepted a formula proposed by the Palestinian ambassador to the
U. N. sanctions imposed on Baghdad after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait cannot be lifted until inspectors certify that Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons have been destroyed.
league, Mohammed Sobeib, that they discuss threats against "some Arab countries, especially Iraq."
U. N. weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998 and Baghdad has barred them from returning, claiming it has met all U.N. requirements.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, another close U.S. ally in the region, told his countrymen in a speech earlier this month that he rejected U.S. war threats against Iraq.
But, he added "the decision in the end is that of the Iraqi leadership, they bear the responsibility before their people, (the Arab) nation and the world."
Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan met in the Syrian capital of Damascus Tuesday with Syrian President Bashar Assad, and a Syrian official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the two discussed the threat of a U.S. strike on Iraq. He did not give details.
Ramadan blamed weapons inspectors for being "the reason" for U.S. strikes on Iraq since the Gulf War, and argued that allowing them to return to Iraq would not prevent a U.S. attack.
Oatari Foreign Minister Sheik Hamad
told reporters during a visit to Baghdad Monday that Qatar opposed any military strikes, but wanted Iraq to accept the return of U.N. weapons inspectors.
The governments of Lebanon, Oman, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates, along with non-Arab Iran, have all repeatedly expressed their opposition to a U.S. military strike against Iraq, saying both countries should solve the dispute through diplomatic means. They have also urged Iraq to implement U.N. resolutions on weapons inspections.
Elsewhere, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, considered America's chief ally on the Iraq question, has spoken frequently about the threat posed by Saddam.
However, Blair faces public skepticism and strong opposition within his own Labor Party to a military attack.
"We don't rule out the possibility of military action and neither in our view should anybody else," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told an audience of business representatives in Scotland on Tuesday.
Europe has generally opposed a strike. Israel has pledged to stand with the United States.
Saddam launched missiles at Israel during the Gulf War and was expected to try to draw the Jewish state into any new war with the United States to rally Arabs to its side.
Summit responds to hunger
The Associated Press
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Delegates to the World Summit on 'Sustainable Development' called Tuesday for more efforts to bring new agricultural technologies to poor farmers to help feed the developing world.
The 10-day summit, which began Monday, is focused on uplifting the world's poor and protecting the global environment.
About 800 million people go hungry every year and about two-thirds of the world's farmland is affected by land degradation.
"There is no point of having healthy children if they are going to die of malnutrition," said Pedro Sanchez, former director of the International Center for Research in Agroforestry. "There is no point in being an environmentalist with an empty stomach."
Meanwhile, negotiators continued trying to reach a compromise on the conference's implementation plan, which many delegates hope will include detailed timetables for tackling problems of energy, biodiversity, food security, clean water and health care.
Developing nations are trying to extract more aid and greater access to Western markets and technology from the summit. The United States is resisting any new aid targets or timetables, while demanding that aid recipients reduce corruption.
The summit was sealed off by concrete barriers and metal fences. An 8,000-person security force is deployed to help prevent the kind of violence seen in past years' international meetings in Seattle and Genoa, Italy.
During Tuesday's session, many delegates railed against European agricultural subsidies
and said they made it difficult for poor farmers to compete on the world market.
Sanchez recommended that wealthy countries commit 5 percent of the money they spent on subsidies to fight hunger in the developing world.
Delegates said new technologies in fertilizers and other agricultural sectors could help reverse that trend, but those advances need to be shared.
"We can roll back hunger immediately," said M.S. Swami nathan, an expert on sustainable agriculture.
About 150,000 poor farmers in Africa were using new, sustainable technologies in fertilizer and soil replenishment and, as a result, were far more productive than their neighbors, Sanchez said.
"It can be done gentlemen. The question is do we have the political will to do it," he said.
Lawmakers urge Bush: seek Congress' approval before sending troops
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Legal questions aside, lawmakers say President Bush needs to seek Congress' approval before sending American troops to attack Iraq because it's the right thing to do. Vice President Dick Cheney warned of grave consequences from not acting quickly against Saddam Hussein.
doesn't need explicit authority from Congress to wage war with Iraq, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters Monday in Crawford, Texas, where Bush is vacationing.
White House counsel Al Gonzales told Bush this month that he
"I don't play this game so much on what's legal and what's not legal," Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said of a U.S. attack on Iraq. "If the president is going to commit this nation to war, he'd better have the support of the Congress and the American people with him."
Cheney, speaking at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Nashville, Tenn., dismissed as "deeply flawed" the logic of those who argue against a pre-emptive strike on Saddam.
Those who say Iraq should be attacked only if Saddam develops a nuclear weapon would later argue "we cannot because he has a nuclear weapon," Cheney said.
That would lead to "a course of inaction that itself could have devastating consequences for many countries, including our own."
The Associated Press
SEATTLE — Boeing delivered its "best and final" offer to the Machinists union Tuesday, calling for a 20 percent pension increase by the contract's third year and a boost in the ratification bonus — from 6 percent to 8 percent of a year's pay.
Boeing delivers proposal
"It's very attractive economically. It's very competitive and we hope they find it acceptable," said Alan Mulally, chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, at a news conference.
Union spokesman Matt Bates said Boeing's offer "is, on every count, unsatisfactory."
"That's a big message that we're sending to our customers if we choose to walk away from our commitment to them," he said of the possibility of a walkout.
A strike would hurt both sides with the airline industry struggling and the economy faltering. Mulally said.
The union is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to accept the contract and whether to strike if the contract fails to win a simple majority. The current contract is set to expire Sunday at midnight.
Union leaders contend Boeing is provoking its largest union to strike.
"It's incredible," Dick Schneider, the union's lead negotiator, said Monday. "This is a company that wants a strike."
Boeing officials said Monday they don't want a strike by their largest union but are trying to negotiate a contract "grounded in economic reality."
"We are in the midst of the worst downturn in commercial aviation history," Boeing spokesman Chuck Cadena said. "Our customers are on life support."
The airline industry, already weakened by a recession, has been in massive turmoil since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. For its part, Boeing cut its commercial production in half and since Sept. 11, the company has laid off or issued notices to nearly 30,000 people.