US asks GMA to withdraw RP recognition of Saddam

Washington will ask countries, including the Philippines, to withdraw recognition to the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to speed up his ouster, the US Embassy said yesterday.

Embassy public affairs counsellor Ronald Post told a radio interview that the US State Department will make a formal request soon.

Earlier, US President George W. Bush requested governments around the world to expel all Iraqi diplomats two days after he ordered military attacks on Iraq.

Manila will study the mass expulsion request, Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople said, adding that the government will not hesitate to kick out any diplomat undermining national security.

"We have not yet received a formal request. But if we receive it we will examine it," Ople said in an interview.

Despite the Philippines’ participation in a US-led "coalition of the willing" against Iraq, the government will act on the US request in line with international practice, a Malacañang official said.

"We will make our own determination on how to handle Iraqi functionaries in accordance with diplomatic practice but always taking into consideration our national interest," Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye told the press. President Arroyo left it to Ople to decide on the request, he added.

US embassy spokeswoman Karen Kelley said Bush’s request was meant to isolate Saddam and hasten his downfall.

"Through our diplomatic missions overseas, the US has made a formal request to those countries in which Iraqis have a diplomatic presence to suspend Iraqi diplomats in those countries on a temporary basis and take steps to assure the prompt departure of the leading representatives of Saddam Hussein’s regime. We made this request because of Saddam’s refusal to disarm," Kelley said.

Ople earlier warned Iraqi diplomats against participating in activities inimical to bilateral ties.

On Feb. 13, Manila expelled an Iraqi diplomat linked to an Abu Sayyaf bomb attack in Zamboanga City last year that killed a US soldier and wounded another.

Ople gave Husham Hussain, second secretary of the Iraqi embassy, 48 hours to leave the country for allegedly having telephone contact with the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic kidnap gang. The US considers the Abu Sayyaf a terrorist group.

In 1991 – during the first showdown between the US and Iraq over Baghdad’s invasion of Kuwait – Iraqi embassy first secretary Jasim Al-Ani was expelled for his alleged ties to two suspected Iraqi terrorists on a mission to bomb a US embassy-run cultural center in Makati City.

On Jan. 19, 1991, Al-Ani made phone calls to Ahmad Ahmad and Abdul Kadhim Saad minutes before the failed bomb attack. The two were killed outside the facility when the bomb went off prematurely. There was no damage to the building. – With Sheila Crisostomo