PARIS/BAGHDAD, 5 February 2003 — Washington’s closest ally Britain failed to coax France into backing early military action against Iraq yesterday.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has promised to unveil “compelling proof” today that Iraq is hiding banned weapons from UN inspectors, but French President Jacques Chirac said more could be done to disarm Iraq peacefully.
“We will only adopt a position when we believe that nothing further can be achieved there,” he told a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair after a summit in the French seaside town of Le Touquet.
Amid this fresh evidence of divisions, the European Union considered calling an emergency summit after Powell’s address.
The EU was also discussing whether to join a possible last-ditch Arab peace mission to Iraq, where several thousand volunteers paraded in the northern town of Mosul.
Kuwait said yesterday it would close the northern half of the country bordering Iraq from Feb. 15 to allow its own military to step up training to defend against any attack.
“No one will be allowed to enter these regions after this date without official permission from the army,” Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Ahmad Al-Mulla told Reuters.
“It’s about 50 percent (of the country’s land area),” he said, adding without elaborating that Kuwait’s military wanted to prepare “to defend the country in case of any attack.”
Israel stepped up preparations for possible Scud missile strikes from Iraq and Israeli and US soldiers fired Patriot missiles in a joint exercise.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who held talks with US President George W. Bush last week, said he thought a decision on taking military action against Iraq was less than a month away.
“I don’t think more than four weeks will be needed to make the case for military action,” Berlusconi told reporters when asked whether military action over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction might begin in weeks or months.
Britain said it would begin loading tanks from Germany onto 20 to 30 ships this week, indicating a possible mid-March start date for a ground war against Iraq.
Blair, trying to straddle the yawning gap between the United States and key members of the EU over a war, won tentative support from Bush last week to agree to seek new authorization from the United Nations for any attack.
But France, along with neighbor and fellow Security Council member Germany, insists everything must be done to disarm Baghdad without war. France has not ruled out vetoing in the Security Council any action it deems unjustified.
Both Blair and Chirac said after their meeting that differences remained over Iraq but they had agreed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had to be disarmed through the UN Security Council.
Bush also wants to rally as many countries as possible behind a war to disarm and depose Saddam but insists time is running out and has warned that any new UN resolution should not be used as a delaying tactic.
US officials said Powell would use satellite photos and intercepted conversations among Iraqi officials to make his case that Iraq was pursuing banned weapons.
EU president Greece was sounding out other members on convening a possible summit following Powell’s address as long as there was a clear understanding of what it could achieve, a spokesman for the European Commission said yesterday.
Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, who has been rallying Arab states to press Saddam to avert war by complying with UN disarmament resolutions, said in Beirut an Arab peace mission to Iraq was a “real possibility” and the EU might join.
In Manama, Bahraini Information Minister Nabil Al-Hamar said that an Arab summit planned here for March 24 would be transferred to Cairo, and backed a call for it to be held earlier in view of the Iraqi crisis. “Bahrain has agreed to a proposal from the Arab League for the transfer of the summit to Cairo,” he said.
He added that his government also backed an Arab League plan “to bring forward the date of the summit following contacts carried out by League Secretary General Amr Moussa.”
The Arab League announced yesterday in Cairo that Arab foreign ministers would hold an emergency meeting there on Feb. 16 to examine the Iraq crisis and efforts to avert war.
Meanwhile, Iraq radiated defiance again yesterday, insisting the US had no true evidence to present to the UN Security Council and asserting that it would provide the council with “lies”.
“I do not think that the United States has anything frightening,” Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told reporters in Damascus, where he met top officials.
In Iraq, UN arms inspectors yesterday visited at least nine suspected sites and said to have found an empty chemical warhead.
In Addis Ababa, the African Union said yesterday it was firmly against any war against Iraq and warned that a conflict in the Gulf would have a serious impact on Africa’s economies by pushing up oil prices.
In an interview with veteran British left-winger Tony Benn yesterday, Saddam Hussein has denied links with Al-Qaeda. (Agencies)
