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CNN Live At Daybreak

Iraq Hopes For Unified Front at Arab Summit

Aired March 26, 2002 - 06:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to go back to the Middle East conflict now. Arab leaders will also be talking about Iraq during this week's summit in Lebanon. The United States has been trying to get Arab support for another war against Iraq.

CNN's Jane Arraf reports on how Iraq hopes to handle the issue.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Arab leaders meeting in Beirut will be talking a lot about Saddam Hussein, but they won't be talking to him. With so many enemies, the Iraqi leader hasn't left Iraq since the Gulf War.

Even with Iraq and the threat of war near the top of the summit's agenda, he is not making an exception now.

One of the president's most trusted aides, Izzat Ibrahim, will sit in for him at the summit. To prepare for that, Ibrahim and other Iraqi officials have been fanning out in a pre-summit tour of Arab countries. Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan says they are aiming for a united front at the summit.

TAHA YASSIN RAMADAN, IRAQI VICE PRESIDENT (through translator): And I wish it would be useful in the service of the Arab nation and the unity of its ranks and facing the challenges.

ARRAF: The unity Iraq is aiming for is a united Arab stand against any U.S. attack on Baghdad. The likely price of that assurance: letting U.N. weapons inspectors back in.

Iraqi officials, though, don't want to talk about that right now. They'd rather talk about an issue that the Iraqi president draws much of his power from in the Arab world: support, real or imagined, for the Palestinian uprising.

RAMADAN (through translator): We give the intifada and standing by the intifada first priority before the issue of Iraq.

ARRAF: Iraq is one of the few Arab countries that opposes a Saudi plan for peace between the Palestinians and Israel. As for people in the streets, the Iraqi government won't let us ask them what they think about all of this. It's as ordinary citizens aren't qualified to talk about politics. (on camera): For years, the Iraqi president was one of the most visible and powerful Arab leaders. Now, 11 years after the Gulf War, although physically absent from the summit, he will still be a powerful presence that can't be ignored.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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