Kindgo
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Damascus rejects accusations it harbors Iraqi fugitives
NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
April 15 — U.S. forces have shut down a pipeline sending oil from Iraq to Syria, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. The move came after multiple warnings of possible sanctions against Syria from the Bush administration, which accuses Damascus of giving safe haven to remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government, and of developing weapons of mass destruction. Damascus rejected the accusations, calling the charges “threats and “falsifications.”
RUMSFELD SAID at the daily Pentagon briefing that coalition forces shut down the oil pipeline, but that he was not sure whether it was the only pipeline to Syria and couldn’t say whether oil is still flowing between Iraq and Syria.
There are allegations that Syria has been receiving up to 200,000 barrels of oil per day through the pipeline — in violation of U.N. sanctions against Iraq.
The news came on the heels of allegations by other senior U.S. officials who have said Washington would explore imposing sanctions on Damascus for allegedly allowing Iraqi officials to flee into Syrian territory.
Speaking earlier Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said:
“We hope that Syria understands that there is a new environment in the region, that Syria will reconsider its policies and that it can make better choices than it has made in the past,” Powell said to a gathering of foreign reporters in Washington.
However, he said, the United States has no military designs on Syria or its leadership.
“There is no list, there is no war plan right now to go attack someone else either for the purpose of overthrowing their leadership or for the purpose of imposing democratic values,” Powell said.
Syria has rejected the U.S. claims.
The “escalated language of threats and accusations by some American officials against Syria are aimed at damaging its steadfastness and influencing its national decisions and (Arab) national stances,” the Syrian cabinet said in a statement.
In Madrid, Syria’s ambassador to Spain said U.S. accusations that Syria was harboring terrorists were an insult.
“It’s an insult to my country, an insult to a country that is a member of the U.N. Security Council and an insult to a peaceful country that is struggling and working for a lasting peace in the Middle East,” the ambassador, Mohsen Bilal, told Spain’s Cadena Ser radio.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS TESTS
On Monday, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Syria’s support for terrorism and “harboring the remnants of the Iraqi regime” were unacceptable.
Syria has long been on a U.S. list of states suspected of supporting terrorism.
Rumsfeld said the United States had “seen chemical weapons tests in Syria over the past 12, 15 months.”
He gave no details. In a report to Congress last year, the CIA alleged that Syria had a “stockpile of the nerve agent sarin” and was “trying to develop more toxic and persistent nerve agents,” along with other weapons of mass destruction.
David Kay, a former lead U.N. weapons inspector, told NBC News that Syria had been known to be in possession of mustard agent for more than 10 years.
Syria is not a party to international conventions banning chemical weapons and is under no legal constraint not to have them.
IRAN SUPPORTS SYRIA
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was “concerned that recent statements directed at Syria should not contribute to a wider destabilization in a region already affected heavily by the war in Iraq.”
Iran also weighed in, saying it would not remain neutral if the United States attacked neighbor Syria. However, military strikes against U.S. forces are not an option, Iran’s former Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezaei said.
“We will not engage in military confrontation with the Americans, but will employ all our nonmilitary facilities to prevent such an attack or to support Syria,” Rezaei told a news conference.
While it dislikes Saddam, Iran strongly opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq, fearing it could give Washington a free hand in post-Saddam Iraq.
‘POSSIBLE MEASURES’
President Bush started the criticism of Syria on Sunday, contending that it had chemical weapons and warned it not to harbor fleeing Iraqi leaders.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer stopped short Monday of threatening any specific action if Syria did not satisfy Washington’s concerns.
It was Powell who upped the stakes, warning Monday that the Bush administration would “examine possible measures of a diplomatic, economic or other nature.”
Haitham Kilani, Syria’s former ambassador to the United Nations, said Syria shared a long border with Iraq and that it was “only natural” for volunteers to cross into Iraq to help fight against coalition forces.
For the past week, with U.S. pressure mounting, no Syrians or Palestinians living in Syria have been allowed into Iraq. The border has been open only to Iraqis and foreigners with valid Iraqi visas.
The country has rejected specific U.S. charges about sending military equipment to Iraq but remained silent on others.
U.S. officials did not spell out what steps they might take. But a bill introduced in the House last week suggests banning U.S. exports and sales of dual-use items to Syria, prohibiting U.S. businesses from operating in Syria, restricting its diplomats, blocking Syrian airline flights, reducing diplomatic contacts and freezing Syrian assets.
ISRAEL ECHOES U.S. DEMANDS
Israel, meanwhile, attempted to take advantage of U.S. pressure on its hostile neighbor and signaled that it is seeking broader benefits from the fall of Saddam.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in remarks published Tuesday that the United States must exert “economic and diplomatic” pressure on Syria to expel Palestinian militants from Damascus and to oust Hizbollah guerrillas from southern Lebanon.
Syria seeks to recover the Golan Heights, a strategic area it lost to Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.
World leaders sought to defuse the tension and tone down the rhetoric between the United States and Israel. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said on Tuesday that Syria was a friend of his country and would not be the target of any military campaign.
“Syria has been and will be a friend of Spain. It will not be the target of any war actions,” said Aznar, one of the staunchest supporters of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, on a trip to the Dominican Republic, told reporters that the U.S. allegations should be addressed in the U.N. Security Council, while the EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said that “the region is going through a very difficult process, and I think it would be better to make constructive statements to see if we can cool down the situation.”
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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