US Accuses Iraq Of Stoking Mideast Conflict

Saddam Hussein is stoking the Mideast conflict to divert attention from his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, says a senior Pentagon official.

July 29, 2002

Saddam Hussein is stoking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to divert Arab and world attention from his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defence for policy and a leading hawk with the Bush administration, said in an interview with the Financial Times that removing Mr Hussein from power would offer the chance of a diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East.

Mr Feith's analysis is a riposte to repeated warnings from Washington's Arab allies that US military strikes against Iraq would substantially destabilise the region at a time when it is already reeling from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

King Abdullah of Jordan, who arrives in Washington this week for talks with President George W. Bush, has consistently urged the US to step back from confronting Iraq.

"Trying to even take on the question of Iraq with the lack of positive movement on the Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Arab, track seems at this point somewhat ludicrous," he told CNN.

According to leaked Pentagon plans, Jordan has been considered by US military planners as a base for strikes against Mr Hussein to help stage an attack from the west of Iraq. Jordanian officials have denied the reports.

However Mr Feith, a leading Bush administration advocate of toppling the Iraqi regime, argues that the intensity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should not deter the US from seeking a change of regime in Iraq.

"Iraq is purposefully and systematically aggravating Palestinian-Israeli relations," he said, citing Iraqi payments to families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

"[Mr Hussein] may think that the more he can encourage terrorist bombings against the Israelis, the more the world is diverted from the issue of his tyranny, his weapons of mass destruction programmes, his terrorist activities, and on to another agenda."

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