Akbar Hashemi's Memoirs - January 19, 2002

The Kuwaiti parliamentary delegation [Mr. Mohammed Jassim Al-Saqr, Chairman of the Foreign Policy Commission] came... They asked my opinion on the future of Iraq. I said, we want a free and independent Iraq and we consider the worst option to be the formation of a dictatorial government dependent on the United States, in which case Iraq's position will change in favor of Israel and plunder oil and weaken OPEC and the countries of the region. One of them said, the existence and continuation of Saddam's government is the worst option and they said, the goal of the conference of heads of state of the region in Turkey is to remove Saddam from Iraq without war...

Full text of the daily:

[Mohammed] ElBaradei, [Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency] announced that 3,000 pages were found in the house of an Iraqi nuclear scientist, regarding the enrichment of uranium with lasers, which were not in the 12,000-page report. He has arrived in Baghdad with Hans Blix, [the chief UN weapons inspector].
The Kuwaiti parliamentary delegation [Mr. Mohammad Jassim Al-Saqr, chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee] came. The strengthening of relations, including the sale of water and gas by Iran to Kuwait, was discussed. They asked me for my opinion on the future of Iraq. I said, we want a free and independent Iraq and we consider the worst option to be the formation of a dictatorial government dependent on the United States, in which case Iraq's position will change in favor of Israel and plunder oil and weaken OPEC and the countries of the region. One of them said, the existence and continuation of Saddam's government is the worst option and they said, the goal of the conference of heads of state of the region in Turkey is to remove Saddam from Iraq without war.
Mr. [Seyed Mohammad Kazem] Khansari, Iran's new representative to the [Organization] of the Islamic Conference, came. He consulted and said, "Most of them have come to the conclusion that no one but you can currently turn the country around." His father [Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Bagher Asadi Khansari] suffered a stroke during Ramadan, and his mother, who was nursing him in the hospital, has fainted and is in a coma.
Mr. [Shamseddin] Kharghani, the new Iranian ambassador to Berlin, came. He asked about Germany, and I said, "We must pay attention to relations and return them to the conditions that were favorable before the Mykonos trial." He said, "Last night, I read the memoirs of a few years ago, in which, as I was leaving the embassy in the Netherlands, he told me, "To whom will you hand over the flag of governance of the country?" You expressed optimism, and now I am worried about the future of the revolution. I said, "I hope that gradually the extremists of the two currents will be isolated and reason and moderation will prevail in the country, and the signs of that will be visible."
In the afternoon, Mr. Seyyed Mohammad Baqir Hakim, the chairman of the Supreme Council [of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq], came. He said that the United States is obstructing the activation of the Iraqi opposition leadership committee and does not want to use the opposition. He believes that if war starts, Saddam will fall quickly.
Today, there have been large-scale anti-war demonstrations in many countries; for example, in San Francisco [USA], 50,000 people participated. Yesterday, there were 100,000 people in Washington. In Canada, one-third of the people consider [George] Bush, [US President], more dangerous than [Osama] bin Laden, [the leader of al-Qaeda].
The condemnation of the Hayat-e-No [newspaper] cartoon continues.