Fall Of Saddam Deepens Russia-U.S. Rift

by Sergei Blagov

The war on Iraq is yet to be over despite events in Baghdad, said Guennady Seleznyov, speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. He accused the U.S.-led coalition of "waging war against civilians and journalists," and described the U.S. as an "aggressor."

The future of Iraq should still be discussed by the UN Security Council, Seleznyov told journalists in Moscow Thursday.

So far, Russia's top leaders are yet to comment on the fall of Baghdad. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to come up with detailed reaction at the forthcoming meeting with the leaders of France and Germany in St. Petersburg.

French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are due to be in St. Petersburg on Apr.11-12 to focus on Iraqi crisis. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was reportedly scheduled to join, but then called off the trip.

Presumably, if Annan had joined the three main European opponents of the U.S.-led war, it would have been seen as an affront to the U.S., something that the UN can hardly afford these days.

However, Russia has been careful to deny that it was forming an anti-war and an anti-U.S. coalition. "Any split among European nations over Iraq would contradict Russia's interests," says Mikhail Margelov, head of the Federation Council's foreign affairs committee, who has been one of the mouthpieces for Putin's foreign policy.

"Meanwhile, Russia is interested in a partnership with the U.S. so as to ensure strategic stability, non-proliferation and to combat international terrorism," RIA news agency quoted Margelov saying at a Russian-German conference in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

Nonetheless, Russian media remain critical. The fall of Baghdad does not mean the end of war for the U.S., Russian official RIA news agency said in a commentary Thursday. "Americans seized Baghdad while looters took all the rest," commented 'Kommersant' daily.

Moreover, exactly when Saddam's statue was demolished in Baghdad on Wednesday, tens of thousands of people rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The crowd shouted: "Shame! Shame!"

Rally organizers, the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, said the demonstration was prompted by an attack on a Russian diplomatic convoy outside Baghdad.

Organizers estimated the crowd at up to 100,000 people, but media reports indicated, though the rally was one of the largest in recent years, numbers were much fewer, around 20,000. Reportedly, students came after professors cancelled classes and ordered them to attend, while others were forced to attend by their employers and got the day off work.

Russia has also accused the U.S. of misleading both domestic and international opinion by manipulating media reports on the war in Iraq.

"We have all seen the bias in the information provided, the violations of the rights of journalists and the way they deceive the American public and the international community as a whole," a spokesman for the press ministry said in a statement, as quoted by the RIA earlier this month. The statement did not cite any examples of the alleged U.S. manipulation.

In the meantime, Moscow was forced to deny reports that it is sheltering Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in its embassy in Baghdad. These claims "absolutely do not and cannot correspond with reality," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said Wednesday.

"Any attack against our embassy will be considered a serious violation of the Vienna convention on diplomatic privilege and immunity," Yakovenko warned.

The speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, suggested earlier that Saddam could have found refuge in Russia's Baghdad embassy. However, on Wednesday RIA quoted Berri's spokesman Arafat Hijazi as saying that the speaker was "misunderstood."

A convoy carrying the Russian ambassador to Iraq came under fire as it headed to Syria on Apr.6. Russian ambassador to Iraq Vladimir Titorenko accused U.S. forces of deliberately shooting at the convoy, which was also carrying embassy staff members and journalists.

Moreover, one Russian media outlet speculated that Saddam's secret archives could already be in Moscow. On Apr. 9 'Nezavisimaya Gazeta' daily alleged that the attack by the U.S. Rangers on the Russian ambassador's convoy near Baghdad was a direct clash between Russian's Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR, and CIA.

"All the details could be revealed in fifty years only, when SVR is expected to declassify its secret documents in 2053," Nezavisimaya Gazeta said.

Meanwhile, Russia's critical attitude may be attributed to the fact that Russian oil firms have the most to lose in a post-war Iraq as they have signed contracts worth 4 billion dollars with the Saddam regime to drill oil wells, deliver equipment and develop Iraq's oil reserves.

The key deal is a $3.7 billion contract by LUKoil, Zarubezhneft and Mashinnoimport to develop West Qurna.

Although Baghdad scrapped the deal in 2002, LUKoil said on Apr 8, it would block West Qurna development for many years if any U.S. or British firm decided to challenge its role in the project.

LUKoil vice president Leonid Fedun told Kommersant daily that the firm would sue any new contender for the field in the Geneva arbitration court for at least $20 billion and ask to arrest tankers with Iraqi crude oil.

"Nobody can develop this field without us in the next eight years as we are going to arrest tankers with crude produced in Iraq," Fedun said.

However, Nikolai Tokarev, head of Zarubezhneft, has sounded more sceptical about chances of keeping Russia's existing deals and recouping losses by international law suits. He has told journalists in Moscow that Zarubezhneft lost some $200 million as a result of the U.S.-led war.

According to Tokarev, Russian firms may have a chance to recover their losses only if the United Nations denounces the war as "aggression," thus giving Russian oil companies legal rights to appeal to international courts.