Jane Arraf: Iraqi threats difficult to assess

Jane Arraf

CNN Correspondent Jane Arraf is in Baghdad covering reaction to Friday's U.S.-led air strike near the capital, the first such attack in two years.

Q: How credible are Iraq's recent threats against the United States and Israel in the wake of the attack?

ARRAF: The tough thing is that nobody knows for sure. In terms of weapons, there have been no weapons inspectors here for the past two years ever since the last talks failed with former UNSCOM chief Richard Butler. At that time when UNSCOM pulled out in December of 1998 and the U.S. and Britain started bombing Baghdad hours later -- which was the last time apart from Friday night Baghdad was bombed -- Iraq said that the bombs had killed UNSCOM and weapons inspections. There have been no weapons inspections since then. So one of the big questions is how much is Iraq really capable of doing? And there is no smoking gun proving that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. There has always been the fear that they were intent on developing biological and chemical weapons, that they may still have that intention, if not the wherewithal.

It is clear that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is very keen to make the Arab world believe that he is ready, willing and able to -- in his words -- "liberate" the region he refers to as Palestine, where the Palestinian Authority has been working toward the creation of its own state, separate from Israel.

Today, in a letter to the armed forces and to the Iraqi people, he said he was forming a division of -- 21 divisions rather -- formed of volunteers who have already signed up to fight for the Palestinian cause. Twenty-one divisions would be up to 100,000 men. He's already been training people. There was a major parade in November in which witnesses saw hundreds of thousands of people Iraq had said had signed up to become volunteers to go and -- "liberate Palestine." Now again when they're talking about "liberating Palestine" there is generally not an easy way to do that. The president (Hussein) says all he needs is a little bit of land next to Israel and he will march in there and get rid of Israel as we know it. Again, a threat that's been made many times before. There's no concrete indication they're about to carry that out. But everybody here is very keen to at least make people in the streets, in the Arab world and in the Muslim world believe that they are intensely serious about this.

Q: How popular among the Iraqi people is the idea of their nation acquiring a nuclear weapon?

ARRAF: That's a really tough one. Basically, the difficulty is that people are not free to talk here. And they're certainly not free to talk about weapons. And the nuclear issue is one of the closest held secrets in Iraq. Iraq for years was building a secret nuclear program which was discovered and destroyed and the feeling is it's been completely destroyed and there's been no new nuclear capability. But certainly, the part of the nuclear program which indicates net strength is still immensely popular with Iraq.

The feeling is that -- not just in terms of Iraq -- U.S. relations with the rest of the world, and this is hard to emphasize enough, the feeling is that it is just not fair. The U.S. and what Iraq sees as its immense power -- treats Israel much, much, much more differently that it treats the Palestinians, than it treats the other Arab countries. There is an immensely popular thought that there could be an Arab nation with enough power to at least threaten, if not carry out the threat, to do something to give Palestinians what they see as justice.

Q: Are Iraqi street protests reacting to Friday's U.S.-led air strike spontaneous or government-sponsored?

ARRAF: They are organized by the government, which is not to say that some people don't spontaneously attend. They're set in a certain place at a certain time. This is a very controlled society and the last thing the government would want would be spontaneous protests because once you have something spontaneous, particularly protests, there's no telling what they will start protesting about.

As you've seen, there's nobody in these protests protesting against the Iraqi leadership or President Saddam Hussein. Now the Iraqi government would say that's simply because there's complete and total support for the leadership and the government. But it is an indication that diversity of thought and freedom of public speech and opinion is not a concept here that's very highly developed.

Bush: Iraq strikes part of 'strategy'
February 16, 2001
A decade after Gulf War, Iraq endures
January 17, 2001
Tenth anniversary of the Gulf War: A look back
January 16, 2001
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein speaks on anniversary of Persian Gulf War
January 16, 2001
Missing U.S. pilot dead, Iraq insists
January 14, 2001
Iraq displays seemingly healthy Saddam Hussein
January 6, 2001

United Nations
Office of the Iraq Programme
The Iraqi Presidency
Iraqi National Congress
Iraq energy profile, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.