17 January 2003
Insert a piece of current news in a bogus HTML tag.
<Despite statements last week from chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix that full cooperation was
expected from Iraq, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri lashed out at the United Nations in a
19-page letter to Secretary- General Kofi Annan written in Arabic. In it, Sabri repeated previous
claims that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction and that the inspections are just a false
pretense for the United States and Britain to attack his country. Sabri assailed U.N. Security
Council resolution 1441, adopted November 8, that called for Iraq to give immediate, unfettered
access to weapons inspectors. Iraq "is being subjected to terrorism for more than 30 years from
international and regional powers," he wrote. "And Iraq's under a daily aggression represented in
the terrorism of the U.S. and Britain through the imposition of the no-fly zones." Iraq has shot
at U.S. and British aircraft repeatedly in the no-fly zones since they were established after the
Persian Gulf War, and coalition aircraft have fired on Iraqi bases in response. In the most recent
action, coalition aircraft struck a mobile radar system Saturday in the southern no-fly zone,
according to the U.S. Central Command. The Iraqi News Agency said the aircraft fired on civilian
and service facilities. After Iraq fired on U.S. and British planes last week, U.S. officials said
the attacks constituted a "material breach" of Resolution 1441, which could trigger a meeting of
the U.N. Security Council at which the United States could call for military action against Iraq>