We won't wait much longer, Bush to tell UN
Date: September 9 2002
By David Sanger in Washington
The United States President, George Bush, is expected to tell the
United Nations on Thursday that America and Britain will take whatever
steps are necessary to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction if
the UN fails to act.
US officials said Mr Bush's speech to the UN would amount to an
ultimatum in which he would outline the threat from Iraq in its
starkest terms and indicate that the US would not wait much longer for
international action.
Mr Bush's drive against Iraq was fully endorsed at the weekend by the
British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who said that "the policy of
inaction is not a policy we can responsibly subscribe to".
In an attempt to build support at home for war, Mr Blair said for the
first time that Iraq's President, Saddam Hussein, could target Britain
if he was allowed to continue obtaining long-range missiles capable of
delivering chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. "The threat is very
real and it is a threat not just to America or the international
community but to Britain," Mr Blair said after meeting Mr Bush at Camp
David.
Britain and America's strategy "mobilises the maximum support, but does
so on the basis of removing a threat that the United Nations itself has
determined is a threat to the whole of the world", Mr Blair said.
He and Mr Bush cited recent satellite photographs showing unexplained
building activity at an Iraqi nuclear installation.
Some details of Mr Bush's speech to the UN are said to be still under
discussion, including whether he would propose that the Security
Council set a deadline for Iraqi compliance or issue a
resolution authorising an international military force to compel
inspections.
But he is expected to call on the UN to enforce the 1991 ceasefire
arrangement with Iraq, which mandates complete disarmament of all
weapons of mass destruction and sharp limits on Iraq's missile force.
Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said last week
that "the burden of proof is not on the US; it is on Saddam Hussein, to
show that the elimination of weapons of mass destruction has taken
place".
Something similar to that phrase was likely to appear in Mr Bush's
speech, officials said.
He and Mr Blair are also believed to have discussed whether it would be
feasible to conduct what Washington now refers to as "coercive
inspections" - an inspection team backed up by air and land forces that
could destroy potential weapons sites and be transformed into an
invasion force if necessary.
Other than Britain, almost all European and Asian allies have said they
oppose a confrontation without evidence that Iraq will imminently
obtain a nuclear weapon. The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, said
at the weekend that France and Germany were against any unilateral US
attack on Iraq.
In Jordan, the Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf,
said Mr Bush was cheating the world by saying Baghdad posed a threat.
The real US motive was to seize control of Iraqi oil, he said, adding
that any military action would fail.
The New York Times, Washington Post, agencies
[SMH Home | Text-only index] " JC
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