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THE PRESENTATION will include transcripts of overheard conversations and photographs of mobile biological weapons installations, the official told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. The details were first reported Friday in a Newsweek story. At the White House, meanwhile, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters that the United States has a “wide variety of means” to support U.S. assertions that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. And at the Pentagon, a defense official said a fourth Navy aircraft carrier will be sent to the Persian Gulf. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, based in Norfolk, Va., is wrapping up pre-deployment training and is likely to head toward the gulf within several days, the official said. Powell, in an article in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, said there would be no “smoking gun” in his presentation. But he stressed that U.N. weapons inspectors were harassed and shadowed by Iraqi government “minders” who monitored what those interviewed said to U.N. inspectors. |
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“The U.S. seeks Iraq’s peaceful disarmament,” Powell said. “But we will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.” Iraq continued to smuggle in technology for weapons programs in December, he asserted. CRITICAL MEETING The presentation could be crucial to U.S. attempts to rally skeptical allies and other members of the council to the proposition of war with Iraq if it continues to harbor the thousands of illicit weapons the Bush administration contends Saddam has hidden away. “We will work to bridge our differences, building on the bedrock of our shared values and long history of acting together to meet common challenges,” Powell wrote. The secretary plans to meet in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday with 10 or more foreign ministers who will attend the crucial Security Council session. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In Washington, meanwhile, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders were invited to the White House for a meeting at 7 a.m. ET Wednesday on Powell’s presentation to the United Nations. In a related development, Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed al-Douri, said he had submitted a letter to this month’s council president, Ambassador Gunter Pleuger of Germany, seeking to speak following Powell’s presentation. A U.S. official told Reuters that the United States would have no objection to the request. As the administration sought to expand its network of potential coalition partners, Powell met Monday with the king of Bahrain, Sheik Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, who then called on Vice President Dick Cheney and planned to see President Bush at the White House. Bahrain, which provides a base for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, was the target of long-range Scud missiles fired by Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War that reversed Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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SADDAM INTERVIEW Meantime, Saddam himself is expected to offer his own assessment on the U.S.-Iraqi confrontation in a television interview with leftist former British lawmaker Tony Benn. The anti-war activist said he asked Saddam “very simple and very short questions” during the one-hour interview that dealt with weapons of mass destruction, alleged links to the al-Qaida terror network and oil. “This was a much more focused visit to have an opportunity for a television interview where he (Saddam) will be able to make his own case to the world,” Benn told a news conference in Baghdad. Benn declined to reveal Saddam’s answers in the interview “because I am hoping that within the next day or two, the whole interview will be broadcast in its entirety.” The interview was Saddam’s first in 12 years and will be broadcast in the next day or two, said Benn, a member of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labor party. Separately, Iraqi parliament speaker Saadoon Hammadi told a group of legislators from the European Parliament that Iraq “will not turn the other cheek” should the United States use force to make Saddam’s regime give up banned weapons programs. “American aggression will end up in a catastrophe for them,” Hammadi said. “They will incur casualties beyond their imagination.” | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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U.N. resolutions passed since Iraq’s defeat by a U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War prohibit nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in Iraq. Thousands of such weapons were destroyed under a U.N. inspection program in the 1990s.  WP: Iraq stockpiles popularity with food The United States and Britain insist Saddam is still hiding banned weaponry and say they will disarm Iraq by force — if necessary. The United States has deployed almost 90,000 troops in the gulf region, a number that may double soon.OTHER DEVELOPMENTS  Rolf Ekeus, who headed U.N. inspections in Iraq from 1991-97, said Monday he believes the current U.N. inspection team should be given two years to carry out its work. Just days after an Irish anti-war protester took a hatchet to a U.S. Navy aircraft bound for the gulf, the same plane has been attacked again. Police said five people breached Shannon airport’s perimeter fence early on Monday and inflicted further damage on the plane, which was undergoing repairs. They were all arrested.
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Turkey’s government said it would seek parliament’s authority this week for military measures ahead of any Iraq war, a move that could open the way for U.S. forces to open a northern front against Iraq. The United States has asked its NATO ally for permission to use its air bases and channel troops through its territory into Iraq in the event of war, and has grown increasingly concerned by the long delay in Ankara’s response. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in remarks published Monday that it was up to the Iraqi government to avert a war by abiding by U.N. demands, adding to regional pressure on Baghdad to cooperate with U.N. inspectors. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a strong supporter of the U.S. hard line on Iraq, said he will go to Washington, New York and London next week for talks about the crisis with President Bush, the United Nations and Prime Minister Blair.
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NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski at the Pentagon and Linda Fasulo at the United Nations, as well as The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. |
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U.S. 'deterrence' upped for N. Korea
