UN helicopters 'withdrawn as insurers suspend cover'
Iraq said most of the helicopters used by United Nations weapons inspectors were flown out to Syria today en route to Cyprus after a Western insurance company suspended its cover for the aircraft.
The move follows growing fears of an imminent US-led invasion. On Saturday, President Saddam Hussein placed his son and three trusted lieutenants in charge of four military regions to defend against any attack.
The decree by the Revolutionary Command Council – Iraq’s highest executive body – appeared to signal Baghdad’s resignation that war may have become inevitable.
Nonetheless, the government continued its efforts to avert war by destroying more of its banned missiles in compliance with a UN directive.
It placed Saddam’s son Qusai in charge of the regime’s heartland – Baghdad and the president’s hometown of Tikrit.
Qusai has for years been in charge of the elite Republican Guard Corps and his father’s own personal security, leading many to speculate that he could be his father’s successor.
Saddam’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid was placed in charge of the key southern sector facing US and British troops massed in Kuwait.
Al-Majid is known among Saddam’s opponents as “Ali Chemical” for his role in the 1988 campaign against rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq in which thousands of Kurds died, many in chemical attacks.
Saddam’s deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was placed in command of the strategic northern region. An area that includes the Shiite Muslim holy sites of Karbala and Najaf was placed under Mazban Khader Hadi, a member of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council.
Saddam himself retained sole authority to order the use of surface-to-surface missiles and aviation resources, the decree said.
The UN spokesman in Baghdad, Hiro Ueki, could not immediately be reached for comment on the departure of five of the eight UN helicopters.
They have been used by the inspectors since January to travel across Iraq to visit sites suspected of involvement in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.
The five that left were US-made Bell-212 helicopters.
The three remaining are Russian-made Mi-8s, which are insured by another company and would continue to be used in the inspections, according to a statement by the National Monitoring Directorate, the Iraqi state agency that liaises with the inspectors.
Iraq, meanwhile, destroyed more of its banned Al Samoud 2 missiles today, as demanded by the United Nations, after the rockets were found to have a range longer than the 150 kilometers (93 miles) allowed. The inspectors also visited a technology college in the town of Karbala south of Baghdad, according to the Information Ministry.
On Saturday, Saddam’s scientific adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, said the government had invited chief UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei to Baghdad to discuss outstanding disarmament issues.
At UN headquarters in New York, Blix said he would study the invitation and discuss it with the council.
Asked if the Iraqi invitation was a stunt, he told the American CNN television news: “I certainly wouldn’t call it a stunt. … We’ll have to give serious thought to what the answer will be.”
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said inspectors would be wise to wait until after the brief summit in Azores, where President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar were meeting this afternoon, “before making any determination about going to Baghdad.”
