Kuwait has readied 750 public shelters for any emergency situation if the United States and Britain strike Iraq, Kuwait's English daily reported on Thursday. Sources within the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry were quoted as saying that the Higher Civil Defense Committee has recently approved 750 shelters, including 600 in schools and 150 in hospitals and health centers, across this Arab Gulf state.
The shelters have been fully equipped with essential food and medical requirements, the sources said. Meanwhile, Director of the Health Ministry's Central Medical Stores Administration Abdullah Diab affirmed the country has a strategic reserve of medicine enough to last for seven months. The Health Ministry has asked local and foreign medical firms to speed up dispatch of additional medical supplies to its stores, he added.
For its part, Iraq said on Wednesday the United Nations should learn a lesson in protecting its reputation by clearing spies from its arms inspection team, citing a former chief inspector's allegation that the United States has exploited the UN mission.
An Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman noted the exposure of the US plots by Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish who led the first UN missions to check Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs from 1991-1997, came as the United States and its allies are piling up their threats to launch military attacks on Iraq, the official Iraqi News Agency reported.
Ekeus said in a Sunday interview with a Swedish radio station it was "no doubt" the American inspectors wanted to influence the inspections to serve the fundamental US interests, including seeking clues to determine Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's whereabouts.
In another development, a new Iraqi opposition body will call upon President Saddam Hussein to "step down and hand over power to a transitional authority," according to one of the founders of the embryonic "higher council of national salvation". "The council will call on (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein to hand over power to an interim military or civilian authority that will run the country pending elections," the founder told AFP on Wednesday.
In addition, the manifesto will appeal to aides of the Iraqi leader to "force Saddam to step down if he refuses (to do so voluntarily) and to guarantee his and his family's safety," the opposition figure said via phone from Holland. "The council will be made up of seven branches: military, security and intelligence, information and culture, finance, foreign relations, internal relations, and a secretariat," the source added. Heads of the seven branches will sit on the council's command, he explained. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
