
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 17, 1991                   TAG: 9103170162
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: AMMAN, JORDAN                                LENGTH: Medium

SADDAM SAYS REFORM ON WAY

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, besieged by tenacious domestic rebellions that continued to threaten his control of key cities, Saturday promised broad political reforms that he said would transform his totalitarian regime into a multi-party democracy.

In his first national address since he announced his army's withdrawal from Kuwait Feb. 26, Sad Soviets propose Gulf security plan. A8. dam offered to create a new constitution, Cabinet and Parliament.

He mentioned no timetable for what he called "a new stage" in the nation's development.

The speech, in which Saddam asserted that Iraqi armed forces had smothered an uprising by Shiite Muslim rebels in the south and would soon snuff the revolt by Kurds in the north, apparently was an attempt to add a political component to his fierce military counterattack against the rebels.

It also served as a response to an unprecedented gathering in Beirut last week of exiled Iraqi political leaders, who pledged to construct a multi-party democracy if they gain power.

Opposition leaders in Damascus, Syria, reacted to Saddam's speech with skepticism.

"He's been saying that for years," said Jalal Talabani, co-chairman of the opposition Iraqi Kurdistan Front. "No one trusts Saddam Hussein. This is not the first time. From experience we Kurds know perfectly well that if we agreed, once he got strong again he would kill us all."

A Jordanian official here had a similar reaction: "He's asking people to believe that the tiger can change his stripes. People know him too well to believe it."

In a reminder of how tenuous Saddam's position appears, Kurdish rebels Saturday claimed they control Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city and a key military and industrial center. The report could not be independently verified.

Also Saturday, an Iraqi opposition leader said that Shiite rebel forces were preparing to march on Baghdad, Saddam's stronghold, Reuter reported.

Shiite rebels also said that the Islamic holy cities south of Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf, had come under "savage bombardment" by government forces and that more than 1,400 people had been killed.

Iran, appealing once again for Saddam to "surrenter . . .to the will of the people," Saturday warned the Iraqi leader against "the violence of the sanctity of the holy sites in Najaf and Karbala," according to a Tehran television report monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp.

by CNB