Iraq Frees Americans As Part Of ‘Charm Offensive’ Saddam Hussein Also Asks U.N. To Remove Economic Sanctions

As the two Americans imprisoned for four months in Iraq arrived in Jordan Monday, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein warned the United Nations that Baghdad would not comply with future disarmament efforts and other U.N. resolutions dating to the 1991 Gulf War unless economic sanctions are lifted.

Hussein also appealed directly to the United States to show humanitarian concern for the Iraqi people in its position on sanctions, effectively asking a quid pro quo for his release Sunday of William Barloon and David Daliberti, the two defense contractors who strayed across the Kuwaiti border in March.

The Americans’ release and the ultimatum to the United Nations coincided with Hussein’s sacking of his cousin, Defense Minister Ali Hassan al-Majeed, who is widely blamed for atrocities against Iraq’s Kurdish and Shi’ite Muslim minorities.

Together, the actions are being interpreted as part of a single package aimed at softening Hussein’s image as a prelude to pushing hard for an end to U.N. sanctions.

“All these steps represent a systematic attempt to curry public favor both at home and abroad. He’s trying to make his Cabinet look less like a family affair and more like a professional government body,” said Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert at National Defense University in Washington. “And by freeing the Americans, he’s trying to convince people that he’s getting more respectable. It’s a charm offensive.”

In a speech Monday commemorating the 27th anniversary of the revolution that brought his Baath Party to power, Hussein said Baghdad has complied with U.N. demands and that it was now “high time” that Iraq be freed from the crippling punishments imposed after its invasion of Kuwait.

“The time has come that the despots, responsible for the suffering of our people, should respond to what is fair and applicable to the resolutions,” he said. “I do not think you appreciate the bitterness of our suffering and the greatness of our pain.”

Although the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) has made major progress in tracking Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, one major issue remains. Baghdad finally admitted only this month, almost five years after its Kuwait invasion, that it had developed a biological warfare program for offensive use.

The Baghdad regime is supposed to turn over data on the project to a team of U.N. biological experts, headed by American specialist Richard Sperson, who arrived in Iraq Monday. But verification of Iraq’s secret project could take months.

Hussein is pressing hard for a clean bill of health when sanctions come up for review again in September - and holding out the prospect that Baghdad might take unspecified action should the embargo remain.