WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, 30 January 2003 — President George W. Bush promised to produce new evidence against Iraq in a bid to convince wary allies that Baghdad is flouting UN demands to disarm.
In his State of the Union address to Congress late Tuesday, Bush also threatened to unleash the full force of the US military to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell is to go to the UN Security Council on Feb. 5 to present "information and intelligence about Iraq’s illegal weapons programs, its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors and its links to terrorist groups," Bush said.
Powell will be armed with newly declassified CIA materials when he takes the US case against Iraq to the Security Council, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "The Central Intelligence Agency is in the process of developing the final materials that will be used by Secretary Powell and they are in the process of declassifying certain things," Rumsfeld told reporters.
At the United Nations, Russia demanded that Powell provide "undeniable proof" of any Iraqi banned weapons when he addresses the Security Council. Moscow’s UN ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, spoke as Security Council members convened behind closed doors on the Iraqi crisis and the Feb. 5 address by Powell. Several foreign ministers are expected to come to New York for the event, including Dominique de Villepin of France and Jack Straw of Britain.
Lavrov said the evidence Powell would present had to be "convincing," adding, "We would like to see undeniable proof."
He also told reporters Russia was not easing its opposition to a US-led attack on Iraq now, contending comments by President Vladimir Putin had been misinterpreted.
Lavrov said Putin was saying that he believed inspections had to continue unless Iraq "stops cooperating with the inspectors and starts blocking the inspectors." "We believe that inspections must continue, and that if Iraq stops cooperating with inspectors and starts blocking inspections we must look into it," Lavrov said.
Secretary Powell said the United States would help Iraqi President Saddam Hussein find a place to go into exile if he left the country. "If he were to leave the country and take some of his family members with him and others in the leading elite...we would I’m sure try to help find a place for them to go," Powell told a news conference.
"That certainly would be one way to avoid war," he said.
Powell, speaking after talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, declined to speculate on whether the United States would give Saddam and his followers immunity from prosecution.
In his State of the Union address, Bush warned thousands of US troops massing in the Gulf that "crucial hours may lie ahead". "We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not disarm, for the safety of our people and the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him," Bush said.
The US military said later that it had activated almost 16,000 more reserve troops, swelling the total to almost 95,000, the biggest since the 1991 Gulf War.
Bush also promised to share with allies new intelligence linking the Iraqi regime with the Al-Qaeda network which was behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
And in London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said there are definite connections between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. "We do know of links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq," Blair told Parliament, but added he knew of no evidence linking the two in relation to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz emphatically denied any Al-Qaeda link. "I absolutely deny that," Aziz said. "And I challenge Bush and his government to present any, any, evidence of that."
Working to shore up support in the US Congress, the Bush administration laid out details of its case against Saddam in a closed briefing that some lawmakers said more clearly linked Saddam to the Al-Qaeda network.
But several Democrats said they heard little new in athe hour-long briefing that Powell and Rumsfeld gave members of the US House of Representatives.
"Most of the material is in the public domain that is being discussed in there," said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, a North Dakota Democrat. "The largest impression I drew from it was that we are moving fairly quickly toward conflict."
Lawmakers said they got a partial preview of the case Powell will make in an effort to rally international support to take action to disarm Iraq.
"They have concrete evidence" of a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, told reporters. "I became more convinced after this meeting."
But Rep. Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat, said, "I didn’t hear anything new."
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, said the secretaries said "they are working on a briefing for the UN that is even more extensive than what we just got, and they expect to show the American people the same briefing."
None of the 15 Security Council nations are defending Saddam but many have misgivings about a US invasion of Iraq, believing the inspections, which just resumed two months ago after a four-year hiatus, need more time.
Iraq’s UN Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri said Baghdad would increase its cooperation with the inspectors. ‘We will go a step further and proactively cooperate with the inspectors to prove that these baseless allegations are nothing but fabrications," Aldouri told reporters.
Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram said Iraq should be allowed to respond to accusations in order to open "possibilities for a peaceful solution." Bulgaria’s Ambassador Stefan Tafrov said he believed war could still be avoided but said he was "very disappointed by the Iraqi cooperation."
And Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe of Syria, Iraq’s neighbor, said he hoped Powell would deliver new information — but give it to UN inspectors to verify, who should have enough time to finish their work. "It is as simple as that," he said.
The Council also again questioned top UN inspector Mohamed El Baradei, in charge of nuclear arms, and Hans Blix, responsible for chemical, biological and ballistic weapons.
Underscoring the tension of an inevitable march toward war, El Baradei said, "We all know that time is running out." But he questioned for the third time Bush’s contention that Iraq had imported aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.
"Our primary indications are that they are intended to be used for conventional rockets but we are still investigating that issue, because with modifications they could in fact be used for enriching uranium," he said. (Agencies)
