MEDIA REACTION IRAQ; HARARE

UNCLAS HARARE 000493 SIPDIS DEPT FOR AF/PDPA FOR DALTON, MITCHELL AND SIMS NSC FOR JENDAYI FRAZER LONDON FOR GURNEY PARIS FOR NEARY NAIROBI FOR PFLAUMER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL KPAO KMDR ZI SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION IRAQ; HARARE ¶1. Under headline "Iraq (U. N.) debate: War mongers shamed again" the pro-government weekly "The Sunday Mirror" dedicated its March 9 editorial to call for a peaceful disarmament of Iraq. Excerpts: ¶2. "After the latest presentation by the U. N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and his colleague Mohamed El Baradei on Friday 7 March, it is clear that the United States will not get the 9 votes they require for a moral victory on their proposed new U. ¶N. resolution for war on Iraq. . .An important trend in the speeches presented by those opposed to war is the expressed feeling that a war on Iraq would not only destabilize the Middle East, but also disturb world peace in general and worsen the already poor economic situation in the Third World. . .But, even as Powell and Bush continued to peddle the tired assertions that Iraq is hiding some weapons of mass destruction, the two U. N. inspectors reiterated that they had so far not found any such weapons. . .In the final analysis, the main message from the U. ¶N. inspectors on Friday was that Iraq had started to cooperate with U. N. Resolution 1441 as indicated by the on-going destruction of its long range missiles. The majority of the 15 members of the U. N. Security Council therefore feel that Iraq does not pose an immediate threat either to the U. S. or to the world and therefore should be disarmed peacefully. On the other hand, the U. S. A. and Britain are now clearly being perceived as the warmongers and the real threat to world peace." SULLIVAN