CAIRO, Jan 28: Many Israelis are heading towards Army distribution centres to pick up gas masks amidst fears that Iraq could blast Tel Aviv with chemical or biological warheads.Reports said the rush for the masks came after Richard Butler, the leader of the United Nations weapons inspectors delegation, said last night that Iraq had enough biological weapons to ``blow away Tel Aviv''.
However, Iraqi Government controlled Al-Jumhuriya newspaper accused Butler of being an Israeli agent. ``He chose Tel Aviv because he knows that this will move the United States, under the pressures of the Zionist lobby, to attack Iraq,'' the daily said.
During the Gulf war, Iraq blasted 39 Scud missiles with conventional warheads on Israel, wounding hundreds.
Another Iraqi newspaper Babil said the members of the US Congress wanted President Bill Clinton to attack Iraq and claimed that it would signify the ``end of Clinton's collapsing ethical and political life''.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albrightprepared to fly to Europe and the Middle East tomorrow to try and settle the looming Iraqi crisis.
Albright will meet French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine on Thursday and Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov.
US State Department officials said Albright would stop in Israel during the weekend to discuss Middle East peace efforts with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, then go to Saudi Arabia and other regional states to discuss Iraq.
The US has issued tough warnings signalling a US military strike on Iraq if Baghdad continued to impede the work of the UN weapons inspectors, who are checking if Iraq has eliminated all its biological and chemicals weapons.
Russia, which played a key role in averting a similar Iraq crisis in November, immediately dispatched its special envoy Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor Posuvalyuk to Iraq.
Posuvalyuk met Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz in Baghdad and said the showdown over weapons inspections is ``leading towardgreater crisis''.
He told Iraqi television he would discuss with Iraqi leaders ``how to get out of this situation which worries us all, and how we can keep this situation in the political sphere so it does not escalate into use of force''.
Iraq has barred UN arms inspectors from some sites including the Presidential palaces of Saddam Hussein and refused to provide data about its weapons programmes.
The UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq, which bans Baghdad from selling its oil, is to be lifted only if Iraq complies with UN resolutions in eliminating biological and chemicals weapons.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
