WASHINGTON/LONDON, 19 December 2002 — US President George W. Bush weighed yesterday whether to declare that Iraq violated a UN disarmament order in its weapons declaration that British and US officials said was incomplete. The US-British move to oust President Saddam Hussein from power assumed urgency after US officials said Iraqi military is placing concrete barriers and other obstacles on runways at remote air bases in western and southeastern Iraq to make any invasion of the country more difficult.

The White House said Bush was concerned about problems and omissions in Iraq’s 12,000-page arms declaration, which officials said failed to disclose Baghdad’s suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

But US officials said Bush would not cite a violation of the UN resolution as an immediate trigger for war. Whether to find Iraq in "material breach" of its obligations — a possible trigger for military action — was debated by Bush and his National Security Council team.

The US president could declare Iraq in violation of the UN resolution as early as today after chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix makes a presentation on the Iraqi declaration to the full 15-member UN Security Council, the officials said. US Secretary of State Colin Powell was expected to make an announcement on the Iraq arms declaration today after Blix’s address.

As the White House declared its reservations, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said there was widespread skepticism about Iraq’s dossier on its weapons.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the declaration had "obvious omissions" and Saddam’s statement that Iraq had no banned weapons would not be believed. "This will fool nobody," Straw said.

But in stark contrast to the hard-line comments of the United States and Britain, France repeated its position that only the UN Security Council could decide what action to take if inspectors find Iraq is in "material breach" of the UN resolution. "In the event of a material breach by Baghdad of its obligations, (the inspectors) should report it to the Security Council and it will be up to the Security Council and the Security Council alone to draw all the conclusions," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told the National Assembly in Paris.

And the head of the United Nations’ nuclear agency said in remarks published yesterday he had no proof so far that Iraq tried to build up a forbidden weapons program since UN inspectors left the country four years ago. "No evidence has surfaced so far that facilities have been changed since 1998," the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mohamed El-Baradei told the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram in reference to the year when weapon inspections in Iraq stopped. But El-Baradei said: "We have to be certain. Inspections are still in their initial stage."

UN inspectors, starting the fourth week of their hunt for Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, searched at least nine sites yesterday. More than 100 experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission are in Iraq.

Meanwhile, warplanes from the US-British operation patrolling southern Iraq fired on air defenses after Iraqi forces moved a mobile radar system into a "no-fly" zone, the US military said.

US officials told Reuters the Iraqi military is placing concrete barriers and other obstacles on runways at remote air bases. They said the barriers could be moved, but that it would require troops and equipment to do so in order to allow military transports to land with perhaps thousands of soldiers in any onslaught of the country.

"It certainly isn’t insurmountable. But it could create some early problems," said one of the US officials, who asked not to be identified. "The bases are essentially unused, so you wouldn’t want to bomb them and then have to repair runways."

They confirmed a front-page report in USA Today that intelligence photographs showed barriers were beginning to block runways at a cluster of four remote bases near an oil pumping station in Western Iraq called H-3, which Pentagon planners have signaled could be likely targets in a US-led attack.

Blocking preparations are also under way at bases in the southeast and near Baghdad, officials said.

US officials told Reuters last week that the H-3 bases could be a key not only to moving troops in for a thrust eastward toward Baghdad but to neutralizing Scud missile launchers in the remote area that could be use to launch strikes against Iraq’s neighbors if a war started.

The H-3 bases, also located in the southern no-fly zone, have been little used by the Iraqi military.

USA Today reported that the barriers were set up to allow the Iraqis to move them quickly for their own military use, but that they could force US planners to use more time-consuming and risky initial approaches such as in a helicopter-borne assault.

The Washington Post also reported yesterday that some senior US military leaders were concerned about evolving US plans, which it said now called for armored units to charge far ahead of supply trucks to engage the Iraqi military. Officials interviewed by Reuters refused to say whether or not Army Gen. Eric Shinseki and Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, the commanders of their respective services, had raised questions about what the Post described as a "riskier than usual" plan. (R)