WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD, 17 October — US President George W. Bush yesterday signed legislation authorizing him to wage war on Iraq, warning Baghdad and reluctant US allies they would be “unwise to test” his resolve to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as the Iraqi leader won seven more years in office. Iraq beat its own records yesterday by announcing Saddam Hussein had won seven more years in office with a 100 percent vote on a 100 percent turnout in a referendum in which he was sole candidate.
It was the mother of all elections. Never before in the annals of Arab democracy has any leader won 100 percent of the vote. But Saddam Hussein has achieved a victory even greater than the 99.96 percent he received seven years ago. Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council Vice Chairman Ezzat Ibrahim said: “Someone who does not know the Iraqi people, he will not believe this percentage — but it is real. We don’t have opposition in Iraq.”
Also yesterday, the Senate gave final congressional approval to a $355.1 billion military spending bill that gives the Pentagon nearly a $40 billion boost as it prepares for possible war with Iraq. Voting 93-1, the Democratic-led Senate followed action by the Republican-led House of Representatives last week, sending the largest-ever defense budget bill to Bush. Despite its $37.5 billion increase for the Pentagon — the biggest since the Cold War — the fiscal 2003 spending bill agreed to by House and Senate negotiators is $1.6 billion less than Bush wanted.
At a White House signing ceremony yesterday, Bush said, “Our goal is to fully and finally remove a real threat to world peace and to America. Hopefully, this can be done peacefully.” “If any doubt our nation’s resolve, our determination, they would be unwise to test it,” added Bush, surrounded in the ornate East Room by some 100 lawmakers of both parties and chambers of Congress.
White House aides have long hoped the resolution, which authorizes unilateral US attacks should the president decide diplomacy is a dead-end, will pressure a reluctant United Nations Security Council to more firmly confront Saddam.
Bush wants the Council to adopt a tough new resolution creating a new weapons inspections regime explicitly threatening military consequences if Saddam fails to comply. “I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use of force will not become necessary. Yet confronting the threat posed by Iraq is necessary by whatever means that requires,” Bush said.
The joint resolution was approved in convincing fashion by the House of Representatives and the Senate last week after a debate over whether Iraq and its suspected weapons of mass destruction pose an imminent threat.
But the United States and Britain came under pressure from other UN members yesterday to drop a proposal for the Security Council to threaten Iraq with armed force unless it gives up its weapons of mass destruction. Almost every speaker in the first three hours of an open Council session noted that Iraq had agreed to let the United Nations resume arms inspections, and said the inspectors should have the opportunity to do their job.
The meeting was called at the request of South Africa’s Ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo, spokesman for the Non-Aligned Nations Movement, in order to allow countries without seats on the Council to express their views. “It would be inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the UN Charter for the Council to authorize the use of force against Iraq at a time when Iraq has expressed its willingness to allow inspections to resume,” Kumalo said.
His Tunisian counterpart, Noureddine Mejdoub, said: “Millions of people are telling our governments that there should not be an attack on Iraq and there should not be a war because a war would be pointless.” Even Kuwait, which was invaded by Iraq in August 1990 and occupied for seven months, said “any use of force must be a last resort, within the United Nations framework and only after all other efforts have been exhausted.”
Permanent Council members France and Russia — which, like Washington, Britain and China wield vetoes — have resisted Washington’s initiative, setting the scene for an acrimonious debate in the Council in New York. In a veiled warning to Paris and Moscow, Bush said chaos in the Middle East resulting from Iraq’s policies “would be felt in Europe and beyond.”
French President Jacques Chirac warned that a US war on Iraq could spark terrorist attacks, and Russia repeated it would not brook a Security Council resolution mandating the automatic use of force against Baghdad. Speaking to Lebanon’s L’Orient-Le Jour newspaper ahead of a visit to Beirut, Chirac also said he knew of no relationship between Iraq and Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terror network. “To my knowledge, no proof has been found, or in any case officially made public, of a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda,” Chirac said.
US officials, meanwhile, said Bush Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, were implementing a “get tough” approach with their French counterparts. “Those who choose to live in denial may eventually be forced to live in fear,” Bush said. Powell spelled out Washington’s new “get tough” approach with reluctant France in a telephone call to French counterpart Dominique de Villepin, even as French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie began a two-day visit to Washington. (The Independent)
