Saudi Arabia, Kuwait lending hand to US conspiracy

BAGHDAD, Jan 24: President Saddam Hussein has accused Saudi Arabia and Kuwait of flooding the global oil market, leading to the impoverishment of other Arab countries and the enrichment of the United States, reports AP.

In a rare front-page editorial published Saturday, Saddam accused the rulers of the two countries of being more concerned about their thrones than their people.

"Saudi rulers have caused great calamities to the Arab nation and committed aggression on its right since they became a bridge for the foreigner," Saddam wrote in the government's al-Jumhouriya newspaper.

He wrote that the United States has built up a huge stock of oil by buying cheaply, and is in a position to sell it at a profit when the prices go up. The United States has often used its inventory to influence the oil markets.

"It is America, to a large extent, which controls the price of oil throughout the world and not laws of supply and demand," Saddam wrote.

Oil prices are now at a record low, selling at dlrs 10 a barrel, down from about dlrs 20 a year ago. Efforts by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries have failed to boost prices.

Saddam wrote he does not see any solution to the global oil crisis until there is drastic change in policy in the two countries.

He said Kuwait and Saudi Arabia exerted pressure on OPEC members to lift their production ceiling "which led to the collapse of oil prices... inflicting great damage on the interests of member countries including those of the Saudi people."

The two countries have handed "America and Zionism knives to pierce the Arab nation," he said.

Asia's economic crisis and unseasonably warm fall in 1998 cut demand for oil, causing a glut in the market after OPEC had already increased output. OPEC controls 40 per cent of the world's daily oil production.

The crisis has hit Iraq hard.

The United Nations currently lets Iraq sell oil worth not more than dlrs 5.2 billion every six months for buying essential goods.

But low oil prices have prevented Iraq from reaching the UN ceiling. Its run-down oil industry could hardly make dlrs 3 billion during the past six-month period that ended in November though the country kept pumping at its maximum limit of about 2.5 million barrels a day.

It is the second time in less than a month that Saddam has unleashed criticism against the two Arab Gulf states.

Early this month, he exhorted Arabs to rise up against the rulers who did not denounce the mid-December US-British airstrikes on Iraq.

Iraq has hardened its position against the United Nations since the airstrikes and demands an unconditional lifting of sanctions. It also refuses to let the inspectors resume work in Iraq.