US embassy cable - 03HARARE493

UNCLAS HARARE 000493 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AF/PDPA FOR DALTON, MITCHELL AND SIMS 
NSC FOR JENDAYI FRAZER 
LONDON FOR GURNEY 
PARIS FOR NEARY 
NAIROBI FOR PFLAUMER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, KPAO, KMDR, ZI 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION IRAQ; HARARE 
 
 
  1.   Under headline "Iraq (U. N.) debate: War mongers 
      shamed again" the pro-government weekly "The Sunday Mirror" 
      dedicated its March 9 editorial to call for a peaceful 
      disarmament of Iraq.  Excerpts: 
 
  2.   "After the latest presentation by the U. N. chief 
      weapons inspector Hans Blix and his colleague 
      Mohamed El Baradei on Friday 7 March, it is clear 
      that the United States will not get the 9 votes they 
      require for a moral victory on their proposed new U. 
      N. resolution for war on Iraq. . .An important trend 
      in the speeches presented by those opposed to war is 
      the expressed feeling that a war on Iraq would not 
      only destabilize the Middle East, but also disturb 
      world peace in general and worsen the already poor 
      economic situation in the Third World. . .But, even 
      as Powell and Bush continued to peddle the tired 
      assertions that Iraq is hiding some weapons of mass 
      destruction, the two U. N. inspectors reiterated 
      that they had so far not found any such weapons. . 
      .In the final analysis, the main message from the U. 
      N. inspectors on Friday was that Iraq had started to 
      cooperate with U. N. Resolution 1441 as indicated by 
      the on-going destruction of its long range missiles. 
      The majority of the 15 members of the U. N. Security 
      Council therefore feel that Iraq does not pose an 
      immediate threat either to the U. S. or to the world 
      and therefore should be disarmed peacefully.  On the 
      other hand, the U. S. A. and Britain are now clearly 
      being perceived as the warmongers and the real 
      threat to world peace." 
 
SULLIVAN