Nicosia : Any objective tabulation of the gains and losses of Iraq and the US in their confrontation over the searching of the Agriculture Ministry in Baghdad shows that while, on the ground, the score is 50-50, the Iraqis have won hands down politically.
President Bush can boast that President Saddam Hussein “caved in” and “backed down” because the UN inspectors will go into the ministry building in Baghdad on July 28 from which they were shut out for over two weeks. The fact is that it will be a different sort of team made up of neutral Europeans, headed by a German, and excluding Britons and Americans, as demanded by Iraq. And this defeat for the US is underlined by the fact that two American inspectors will be in that part of the team that will specifically function outside the ministry.
Thus, Iraq has asserted, and the UN has accepted that Iraq can have a say in the composition of the UN inspection teams and that the nationals of some countries, the US and UK, should not be on the teams because, as former participants in ‘Desert Storm 1’, they are not neutral. A considerable Iraqi gain. (Deccan Herald July 28).
(“DV proves right on Saddam Hussain”, DV Feb 1,1992).
