WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS, 5 September — President George W. Bush kicked off in earnest his efforts to win domestic and foreign support for an attack on Iraq yesterday, promising to seek congressional approval of any such move. Bush said he would call on world leaders next week at the United Nations to recognize that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction and that the United States must act. The president is likely to address the United Nations on Sept. 12.
"Today the process starts," Bush said after he met Republican and Democratic congressional leaders at the White House — his first important engagement since his month-long holiday in Texas.
His remarks came amid growing signs that Bush, like Tony Blair, who will make a flying visit to Camp David this weekend, is preparing to make public evidence of Saddam’s build-up of weapons of mass destruction, which skeptics of military intervention demand as a minimum condition before Bush acts.
Shortly after the President spoke, one of the administration’s most vocal hawks on Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, went to Capitol Hill to give a closed-door briefing to key senators and congressmen, including an "operational update" on the war on terrorism.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said after meeting with Bush that Congress could pass a resolution on US action within weeks. "We will have addressed this issue prior to the time we leave. That is a possibility," Daschle told reporters. Congress is to end its session Oct. 5, giving lawmakers time to return to their home state for the November congressional elections.
Bush was partly responding to a European Union warning to the United States not to go it alone in its war with Iraq, urging a UN approval before launching any strike. At the European Parliament in Brussels, senior EU politicians united in stressing to the Americans that the United Nations will be vital if European capitals are to fall in behind a US military campaign.
Nevertheless, there were growing indications that the Europeans could be won over to the anti-Iraq cause if Washington takes care to act multilaterally. An opinion published yesterday showed that 60 percent of Europeans would approve of a military strike on Iraq if it has UN backing.
Signs that preparations for a new Gulf War are well under way were dramatically highlighted yesterday when the US stepped up the movement of heavy armor to the Gulf. It emerged the US Navy has booked a giant commercial transporter to take tanks, artillery, ammunition and back-up vehicles to the region.
It is the third shipment of arms and military hardware in a month using commercial shipping. Military analysts said it showed the US Navy had probably exhausted the capacity of its own fleet and resorted to the open market.
Shipping sources said the US Military Sealift Command had chartered a US flagged general cargo ship to sail from the southeast US coast to an unspecified Middle Eastern port in the Gulf for discharge in late September. It is the latest development in a process that has been going on behind the scenes. (The Independent)
