WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD, 13 January 2003 — The United States ordered 62,000 more troops to the Gulf at the weekend, despite signs of European reluctance to rush to war with Iraq. As the military buildup went ahead, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said yesterday that only Iraq’s neighbors could prevent the United States from declaring war on Baghdad.
Sources said British Prime Minister Tony Blair would meet US President George W. Bush soon after UN arms inspectors present a key report on Jan. 27 on Iraq’s compliance with their searches for weapons of mass destruction.
The inspectors visited at least eight sites in Iraq yesterday, hunting for banned nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, an Iraqi official said, as Baghdad again accused them of spying. "Inspection teams are here and our cooperation with them is continuing, but if America wants to look for a pretext for the aggression, only the countries of the region can prevent it," Saddam was quoted by Iraqi state television as saying during a meeting with Turkish Trade Minister Kursad Tuzmen.
Tuzmen was carrying a letter from Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul urging Iraq to comply with UN resolutions in an effort to ward off military action. "With clarity, seriousness and brotherly dialogue we can reach the best solutions in the field of bilateral cooperation which would lead to many achievements and a high degree of stability in the region," Saddam said.
Blair is expected to use his trip to Washington to press his position that UN inspectors be given time to do their work. His spokesman said Blair had told his Cabinet: "Jan. 27, whilst an important staging post, should not be regarded in any sense as a deadline."
The Washington Post, however, quoted a senior US official as saying while the United States believed the Jan. 27 report would probably not provide a definitive trigger for war, "it is a very important day (marking) the beginning of a final phase".
Besides ordering the deployment of 62,000 additional military forces since Friday, the Pentagon launched an e-mail campaign urging Iraqi civilian and military leaders to reject Saddam. Defense officials said the US could be ready for war by mid- to late-February with a force exceeding 150,000 soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen.
But European officials have spoken out against a rush to war on the basis of inconclusive weapons inspections, which resumed in late November after a four-year hiatus. France, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, has insisted on an international mandate for any military action, while Germany opposes an attack on Iraq. In Britain, many in Blair’s own Labour Party opposed war, surveys have shown.
Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, in the government newspaper Al-Jumhouriya, repeated accusations by Saddam last week that the inspectors were carrying out "intelligence" work, but said Baghdad would continue to cooperate with them. Saddam’s adviser Amer Al-Saadi said: "They (inspectors) are asking questions which are irrelevant to weapons of mass destruction and to their mandate. For example, they visited an air base and asked about the routes leading to and out of it."
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa warned any attack on Iraq would open a "Pandora’s Box" of problems in the Middle East, "a region already frustrated by Israeli policies against Palestinians", United Arab Emirates newspapers reported.
Gul took his diplomatic mission to Iran yesterday, but said the main responsibility for heading off a conflict lay with Iraq. "The whole region will pay a heavy price if an attack takes place against Baghdad, so all the regional countries should try to prevent the war," Gul told a news conference in Tehran after meetings with top Iranian officials.
"To avoid war, Iraq has the main responsibility. It should comply with all UN resolutions but Iraq’s integrity must be respected as well," Gul said. Turkey, Iraq’s northern neighbor, is a NATO ally of Washington but has not yet said whether it will allow US forces to use bases on its soil in any Iraq war.
Gul’s peace message found favor in Iran, which fought a bitter eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s but is strongly opposed to any attack against its western neighbor. "I hope the regional consultations will help the Iraqi crisis to be solved peacefully to save the Iraqi people and regional interests," the official IRNA news agency quoted President Muhammad Khatami as saying in his meeting with Gul. (Agencies)
