Come for Sunday dinner.....
In a surprising new development, Saddam Hussein has invited UN inspectors back to look around one more time and then come for a chicken dinner at one of his 400 palaces [to be decided later]. At U.N. headquarters in New York, Chief Inspector Hans Blix said he would study the invitation and discuss it with the council. Asked if the Iraqi invitation was a stunt, he told CNN,"I certainly wouldn't call it a stunt, Saddam has never been known to pull stunts. ... I think that they will actually serve chicken, but we will of course inspect it also".
Iraq's Foreign Ministry said Saddam's science adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi - the point man on disarmament - had invited the two chief inspectors to come to Baghdad at the "earliest suitable date to discuss means to speed up joint cooperation, but please not for another week, as we are still moving some items". Amer al-Saadi pledged to take inspectors to all locations where chemical and biological labs had been to show them that they are no longer there.
In another bid to show cooperation, Iraqi authorities gave inspectors the names of 183 more scientists involved in Iraqi chemical weapons programs, U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said Saturday.These, of course, were due five months ago and Iraqi officials denied ever having kept names from the UN, but chief inspector Blix hailed this move as a show of real cooperation.
In Saddam's hometown, Tikrit, thousands of people including Baath Party officers armed with Kalashnikovs and men in Arab dress, carried portraits of the Iraqi leader and chanted "We love Saddam," as they filed past a local dignitaries in a reviewing stand. We seek one of two things: victory or martyrdom," said one demonstrator, Abdullah Rasheed al-Haza'a. To show their willingness to negotiate even at this late date, US officials pledged assistance in the martyrdom.
In a surprising new development, Saddam Hussein has invited UN inspectors back to look around one more time and then come for a chicken dinner at one of his 400 palaces [to be decided later]. At U.N. headquarters in New York, Chief Inspector Hans Blix said he would study the invitation and discuss it with the council. Asked if the Iraqi invitation was a stunt, he told CNN,"I certainly wouldn't call it a stunt, Saddam has never been known to pull stunts. ... I think that they will actually serve chicken, but we will of course inspect it also".
Iraq's Foreign Ministry said Saddam's science adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi - the point man on disarmament - had invited the two chief inspectors to come to Baghdad at the "earliest suitable date to discuss means to speed up joint cooperation, but please not for another week, as we are still moving some items". Amer al-Saadi pledged to take inspectors to all locations where chemical and biological labs had been to show them that they are no longer there.
In another bid to show cooperation, Iraqi authorities gave inspectors the names of 183 more scientists involved in Iraqi chemical weapons programs, U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said Saturday.These, of course, were due five months ago and Iraqi officials denied ever having kept names from the UN, but chief inspector Blix hailed this move as a show of real cooperation.
In Saddam's hometown, Tikrit, thousands of people including Baath Party officers armed with Kalashnikovs and men in Arab dress, carried portraits of the Iraqi leader and chanted "We love Saddam," as they filed past a local dignitaries in a reviewing stand. We seek one of two things: victory or martyrdom," said one demonstrator, Abdullah Rasheed al-Haza'a. To show their willingness to negotiate even at this late date, US officials pledged assistance in the martyrdom.
