Saddam rallies support with prisoner amnesty

Buoyant Iraqi President Saddam Hussein marked his "perfect" election by issuing an amnesty yesterday for most of the country's prisoners, aiming to rally support in the face of US efforts to topple him.

The decree which covered all political prisoners was extended to Arab prisoners, including Kuwaitis, as well as most inmates held for criminal convictions, officials said.

Witnesses said they saw scores of prisoners leaving a prison in Baghdad. "With our blood and souls we redeem you Saddam," prisoners chanted as they were freed.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would introduce a compromise Iraq resolution to the United Nations this week. The Security Council members have been deadlocked over the wording of the new resolution, delaying the return of weapons inspectors.

He said the resolution would cite Saddam's past violations of inspection orders, which date back to shortly after the 1991 Gulf War. He said the resolution would demand new inspections and warn that Saddam would pay a price if he did not comply.

Powell said while key members of the UN Security Council have yet to agree on the proposed resolution, he expected strong support for unfettered weapons inspections demanded in the tough US Security Council resolution.

Powell said on on ABC's This Week that if Saddam refused to permit UN weapons inspections, "the United States believes that it and like-minded nations... will have all the authority it needs at that point if it chooses to take action".

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, speaking to reporters after talks with Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, added: "I expect the Security Council in the not-too-distant future will pass a resolution strengthening the hands of the inspectors and will send them in to continue their disarmament programme."

Iraq warned that any new resolution on arms inspections would violate earlier agreements with the United Nations.

France, which as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council has the power of veto, has led opposition to initial US proposals calling for the immediate use of force against Iraq if any Security Council member judges it to have impeded weapons inspections.

Iraq is accused of developing weapons of mass destruction, a charge it denies.

In Beirut, leaders of French-speaking nations at a summit delivered a snub to Washington by defending the "primacy of international law and the primordial role of the United Nations" in the crisis.

French President Jacques Chirac was the guest of honour at the ninth summit of French-speaking nations, which represents some 500 million people and includes more than a quarter of the member states of the United Nations.

A final communique from the summit called for "collective responsibility to resolve this Iraqi crisis and we call on Iraq to fully respect its obligations".

"We note with satisfaction that Iraq has officially accepted the unconditional resumption of United Nations inspections," it added.

Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan said yesterday Baghdad was still ready to admit weapons inspectors - who had cited Iraq's lack of cooperation as their reason for withdrawing four years ago - under an agreement reached with the United Nations on October 1.

But the Iraqi government, after a meeting chaired by Saddam, did not say whether it would withdraw its decision to readmit the inspectors if a US compromise resolution was passed by the Security Council.

"Passing any new resolution that contradicts (earlier) agreements represents a retreat from the stand that the Security Council should take," a government spokesman said.

Iraqi officials said all of the pardoned prisoners would be released within 48 hours. They gave no figures but the number of freed prisoners was expected to total several thousand.

It was the first time Saddam had pardoned all political prisoners in his 23-year rule.

Official results, dismissed by Washington, showed every one of the nearly 11.5 million Iraqis eligible to vote in Tuesday's presidential referendum turned out to cast a 'yes' ballot, giving Saddam another seven-year term in office.

"In light of these results... we show mercy rather than punishment, and amnesty rather that implementing the law and legal persecution," Saddam said in a statement read on Iraqi television by Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

Meanwhile, Jordan's King Abdullah was quoted as saying he saw only a slim chance war could be avoided.

"The chances (for peace) are better today than three or four weeks ago. The statements by the US government have become more balanced. Nevertheless, the probability of avoiding a war appears to me small," he was quoted as saying in an interview with Handelsblatt newspaper before a visit to Germany which begins today.

Iran's intelligence minister, Ali Yunesi, said while his country, which fought an eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, did not stand by Saddam, it did "oppose the politics of force and arrogance that America is following against the countries of the region and the world, which will lead to a real catastrophe".

"It is true that the Iraqi regime possesses weapons of mass destruction, but America is the one who supplied it with these weapons when it used them against Iran and against the Iraqi people," he told Iran's IRNA news agency while in Syria.