Sudan wants Carter to inspect bombed plant
Ayodele Ayetigbo
By Hassan Hafidh
BAGHDAD, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa
Osman Ismail said former U.S. president Jimmy Carter could lead
a U.S. team to inspect a Sudanese factory which was hit by U.S.
missiles on Thursday on grounds it produced chemical weapons.
``A neutral respected person like ex-president Carter could
lead an investigation team and come and see whether this factory
is really producing chemicals or not,'' Ismail told reporters in
Baghdad late on Sunday night.
Ismail, who concluded on Monday a four-day visit to Iraq,
rejected U.S. charges that the $32 million plant reduced to
rubble by last Thursday's U.S. missile attack was making
chemical weapons.
The United States carried out Thursday's strikes against
what it called ``terrorist-related'' targets in Sudan and
Afghanistan after this month's bombings of U.S. embassies in
Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in which more than 260 people were
killed.
Washington accuses Saudi-born dissident Osama Bin Laden, who
moved to Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996, of playing a key role
in the bombings.
Sudan has asked the U.N. Security Council to send a
fact-finding mission to inspect the factory, which the
government says is owned by Sudanese businessmen Salah Idris and
Ahmed Idris. Khartoum said the factory called al-Shifaa (the
recovery) was purely producing medicines.
``We asked a fact-finding mission to come and investigate
whether the plant was manufacturing medicines or chemicals,''
Ismail said.
He said the complex was built by a private Jordanian company
and was financed by an African development bank. ``It is owned
100 percent by a Sudanese businessman and has nothing to do with
the Sudanese government whatsoever.''
``The person managing the factory is British, of Indian
origin. He is still in the plant and is responsible for all
operations in it,'' he said.
Iraq's government newspaper al-Jumhouriya published on
Saturday documents showing Baghdad had bought medicines from the
same Sudanese factory which was attacked by the U.S.
The documents were initialled by a U.N. Security Council
committee, and listed medicines and pharmaceutical products
which it had licenced Iraq to import from the Sudanese plant
under Baghdad's oil-for-food deal signed with the U.N.
Ismail handed on Saturday President Saddam Hussein a message
from Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir on the U.S. air
strikes on Sudan.
Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council has condemned the U.S.
air strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan as ``reckless aggression.''
Iraqi newspapers continued their condemnation of the strikes
on Monday with one newspaper saying Saddam was the right person
to confront such American attacks.
``Who can educate America and can hold the stick against it
and hit the heads of the wicked and sons of Satan?,'' the
official al-Qadissiya daily asked.
``God has chosen Iraq and its great leader to implement such
a glorious role,'' the paper said in a commentary written by
former culture and information minister Hamed Yousif Hummadi.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir also said on Monday
his country reserved the right to hit back at the United States
for destroying the pharmaceutical plant, but would act within
the law.
BAGHDAD, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa
Osman Ismail said former U.S. president Jimmy Carter could lead
a U.S. team to inspect a Sudanese factory which was hit by U.S.
missiles on Thursday on grounds it produced chemical weapons.
``A neutral respected person like ex-president Carter could
lead an investigation team and come and see whether this factory
is really producing chemicals or not,'' Ismail told reporters in
Baghdad late on Sunday night.
Ismail, who concluded on Monday a four-day visit to Iraq,
rejected U.S. charges that the $32 million plant reduced to
rubble by last Thursday's U.S. missile attack was making
chemical weapons.
The United States carried out Thursday's strikes against
what it called ``terrorist-related'' targets in Sudan and
Afghanistan after this month's bombings of U.S. embassies in
Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in which more than 260 people were
killed.
Washington accuses Saudi-born dissident Osama Bin Laden, who
moved to Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996, of playing a key role
in the bombings.
Sudan has asked the U.N. Security Council to send a
fact-finding mission to inspect the factory, which the
government says is owned by Sudanese businessmen Salah Idris and
Ahmed Idris. Khartoum said the factory called al-Shifaa (the
recovery) was purely producing medicines.
``We asked a fact-finding mission to come and investigate
whether the plant was manufacturing medicines or chemicals,''
Ismail said.
He said the complex was built by a private Jordanian company
and was financed by an African development bank. ``It is owned
100 percent by a Sudanese businessman and has nothing to do with
the Sudanese government whatsoever.''
``The person managing the factory is British, of Indian
origin. He is still in the plant and is responsible for all
operations in it,'' he said.
Iraq's government newspaper al-Jumhouriya published on
Saturday documents showing Baghdad had bought medicines from the
same Sudanese factory which was attacked by the U.S.
The documents were initialled by a U.N. Security Council
committee, and listed medicines and pharmaceutical products
which it had licenced Iraq to import from the Sudanese plant
under Baghdad's oil-for-food deal signed with the U.N.
Ismail handed on Saturday President Saddam Hussein a message
from Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir on the U.S. air
strikes on Sudan.
Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council has condemned the U.S.
air strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan as ``reckless aggression.''
Iraqi newspapers continued their condemnation of the strikes
on Monday with one newspaper saying Saddam was the right person
to confront such American attacks.
``Who can educate America and can hold the stick against it
and hit the heads of the wicked and sons of Satan?,'' the
official al-Qadissiya daily asked.
``God has chosen Iraq and its great leader to implement such
a glorious role,'' the paper said in a commentary written by
former culture and information minister Hamed Yousif Hummadi.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir also said on Monday
his country reserved the right to hit back at the United States
for destroying the pharmaceutical plant, but would act within
the law.