Govt makes plans for America’s war

With a second Gulf War now looking more and more likely — George Bush has warned Iraq’s Saddam Hussain that his ‘‘game i...

With a second Gulf War now looking more and more likely — George Bush has warned Iraq’s Saddam Hussain that his ‘‘game is up’’ — the Government is planning to call an all-party meeting on the issue. It also proposes to set up a crisis management group for protecting Indian interests if war breaks out.

The BJP-led NDA Government may have called for ‘‘maximum restraint’’ but the South Block is keen on a political consensus on the issue. The US continues to build opinion for an attack on Iraq while Britain is preparing to introduce a new resolution in the UN authorising force against that country.

What has forced the Government to actively contemplate calling all the political parties for discussion is the clamour by MPs on Iraq during the meeting of the Ministry of External Affairs Standing Committee on Economic Diplomacy this week.

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And this time India will not be caught napping unlike the Iraq-Iran conflict in April 1980 when the Indian embassy in Baghdad had to write to then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for evacuating Indians. Contingency plans are already in place to do so, particularly from Kuwait.

A crisis management group is being set up in South Block with members from the ministries of external affairs, civil aviation, shipping and home affairs. The contingency plans were reviewed by External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha at a meeting with Indian ambassadors in the Gulf at Abu Dhabi on January 28.

Behind India’s decision to adopt a pragmatic approach towards the Iraq issue are reasons of economy, rather than heart. India has done only one billion dollars worth of trade with Iraq in the past 12 years.

Baghdad owes more than two billion dollars to New Delhi for works, including reconstruction activity done by Indian companies post-Desert Storm in 1991. The flip side is that ONGC (Videsh) Ltd has been awarded two oil exploration contracts in Iraq.

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In fact, in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, the then Foreign Minister I K Gujral’s decision to openly hug Saddam Hussein had cost the country heavily.

Indian companies lost billions of dollars worth of business in the reconstruction of Kuwait. In fact, now there are over 350,000 Indian expatriates in Kuwait who are remitting precious foreign exchange to the home country.

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