Iraqi official urges Arabs to retaliate if U.S. attacks

The Washington Post

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An Iraqi vice president threatened Tuesday to engulf the United States in a wider conflict if his country is attacked, urging Arabs outside Iraq to respond by striking at U.S. interests all over the world.

"We categorically believe that the aggression on Iraq is an aggression on all the Arab nations," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said at a news conference in the Jordanian capital, Amman. He called on "all Arab and good people to confront the interests of the aggressors, their materials and humans, wherever they are."

Arabs should use "all means" to respond, he said.

Ramadan's exhortation was among the most confrontational made by senior Iraqi officials in response to growing fears here of a U.S. attack. Although Iraq has long sought to elicit support and sympathy from Arabs beyond its borders, it hasn't before made such a public call to arms.

Despite the escalation of rhetoric, there was no sign of crisis on major Baghdad streets that foreign reporters traveled en route to a tour of a bombed-out Iraqi nuclear facility. Traffic flowed normally; ordinary people patronized shops and restaurants. Conversations with government officials who were made available to reporters didn't suggest a sense of panic.

Israeli President Moshe Katsav, meanwhile, said that Iraq would probably attack Israel in response to a U.S. campaign and that Israel would "for certain" retaliate.

During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Israel abided by U.S. requests not to respond to Iraqi Scud missile attacks.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud Faisal, said Tuesday he worried a U.S. attack might tear Iraq apart. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, he insisted the United States seek U.N. approval for action against Baghdad. European countries have made similar calls.