IRAQ: Iraq's tightly-controlled state media yesterday did little to publicise the handing over at the weekend of the 12,000-page weapons declaration demanded by the UN, despite the fact that it marks Iraq's last chance to avert war.
By Rory McCarthy, in Baghdad
The Iraqi press is more a machine of propaganda than a forum for free speech. So instead the press and national television gave top billing to a more politically-palatable letter written by Saddam Hussein apologising to the Kuwaiti people for the 1990 invasion.
President Saddam tried to explain the reasons behind the attack 12 years ago, and warned the Kuwaiti people they were being used by the Americans, whom he described as the "occupying armies of infidels".
Thousands of US troops are stationed across the deserts of Kuwait in readiness for any military attack on Iraq.
Iraqi state television and radio broadcast the letter repeatedly throughout Saturday evening.
The al-Jumhuriya newspaper, the principal mouthpiece of the government, devoted several pages to the President's words.
"The main purpose of the letter is to say the truth which will help the Kuwaitis," the paper said in its front-page headline.
It printed in bold letters the Iraqi dictator's contorted, semi-apology to the Kuwaiti people, and ran a picture of him sitting at a desk apparently studiously writing the letter.
Other photographs inside showed dozens of senior Ba'ath party loyalists congratulating each other and the Iraqi dictator for the letter, and for the Muslim Eid festival which is being celebrated.
Most of the paper was dedicated to the Eid celebrations, apart from a small back-page article suggesting an Egyptian actress was about to make a film of the life of Princess Diana.
Al-Jumhuriya ran not a single word about the filing of the declaration on Saturday, perhaps the single most important event in Iraq since the weapons inspectors pulled out four years ago.
The regime appears to regard the UN demand that it file a new "full and complete" declaration on its suspected weapons programmes as a humiliation after years of defiantly insisting Iraq had nothing to hide.
The regime encouraged Western television cameras to film the documents and witness them being passed to UN inspectors in tatty black suitcases tied with string and sealed with wax. But there was nothing of the sort for its domestic audience.
For most Iraqis, the state media is merely a timid organ of the powerful and often brutal government apparatus. Few homes have satellite dishes so anyone wanting to listen to real news finds it on the Arabic services of international radio channels, particularly the BBC.
From what they hear, many in Iraq already appear resigned to war.
Prof Wamid Nadmi, an Iraqi political scientist and graduate of Durham University in England, said he believed war was imminent.
"Up until now it seems inevitable unless a miracle happens," he said yesterday. "It seems to me the US and Britain are intent on aggression and invasion. They are operating not with the law of a court but the law of the jungle and they ought to be ashamed.
"But the average Iraqi has been destroyed by the sanctions. I don't think they spend much time thinking of the alternatives facing them." - (Guardian service)