Bush administration officials pressed their concerted campaign Sunday to convince a skeptical United Nations that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has failed to surrender his suspected weapons of mass destruction and may need to be disarmed by force.
With just a week to go before UN weapons inspectors are to deliver a crucial status report, Secretary of State Colin Powell opened two days of meetings with foreign ministers from key Security Council nations Sunday evening to try to convince them that Iraq already has breached its disarmament obligations and should not be granted more time to comply.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice joined Powell earlier on the Sunday morning news shows to warn that President Bush may invoke the authority he has asserted to launch a war against Iraq even if the Security Council does not authorize force in a new resolution.
“There is a sizable coalition of the willing that’s already on board, with or without a second resolution from the United Nations,” Rumsfeld said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding, however, that Bush had not yet decided to invade Iraq. The United States plans to have more than 150,000 troops deployed in the Persian Gulf by mid-February.
Rumsfeld said war might be avoidable if Hussein and his regime’s top echelon were to leave Iraq voluntarily and accept an exile arrangement that neighboring Arab countries reportedly are attempting to broker.
“It would be a good thing for the world if he left,” Rumsfeld said.
Rice, however, was more skeptical. “I just think that it is unlikely that this man is going to come down in any other way than to be forced,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
UN weapons inspectors are to report Jan. 27 to the Security Council on the results of their first 60 days of inspections in Iraq. Although the inspectors in recent days have unearthed some Iraqi munitions that could be loaded with chemical weapons, they have yet to unveil any “smoking gun” evidence that could prove that Hussein is hiding deadly weapons programs.
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U.S. opposes more time
Because the inspectors say Iraq has failed to fully cooperate, chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei have indicated that they will ask the Security Council for more time to search for suspected stores of chemical, biological and nuclear materials.
But the White House strongly opposes any lengthy extensions, and Rice said that the Jan. 27 report will mark “the start of a last phase” in the 12-year-long international confrontation with Iraq over its refusal to disarm after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Outlining the argument they hope will persuade the United Nations, all three of the senior Bush administration officials emphasized that the Security Council’s unanimous vote last November to send inspectors back to Iraq was intended to test Hussein’s willingness to cooperate, not the ability of the inspectors to find hidden arms.
“The United Nations resolution doesn’t talk about a smoking gun,” Rice said. “What it talks about is: Is Iraq prepared now to fully disarm? This is about the disarmament of Iraq, not about weapons inspectors hunting and pecking all over the country, trying to find well-hidden stocks that Saddam Hussein hides in this vast country.”
The White House insists that Hussein has repeatedly breached the requirements of the UN resolution by failing to fully disclose his weapons programs and resisting efforts by the inspection teams to question Iraqi weapons scientists free from intimidation by Iraqi government officials.
“I think that persuasive case is there now that they’re not cooperating,” Powell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” noting that Iraq had failed to account for large quantities of anthrax and botulinum toxins, among other things, that UN inspection teams had unearthed in the late 1990s before Iraq blocked them from completing their work.
Key nations want resolution
Key veto-bearing Security Council members, among them France, Russia and China, are not convinced and argue that the inspectors should be allowed to continue their work. Those nations insist that Washington must seek a second UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force before launching a war.
“If the United States decides to intervene alone, we will have to say that that will happen outside of the international community,” French President Jacques Chirac told the newspaper Le Figaro.
On Sunday in New York, Powell met with the French and Chinese foreign ministers. State Department officials said the sessions would focus on Iraq and the North Korean crisis.
The three administration officials disputed weekend reports in which South Korean President-elect Roh Moo Hyun said Washington had actively considered a military strike against Pyongyang if it does not cease its nuclear weapons programs.
Bush “retains all of his options,” Rice said. “But he believes this can be resolved diplomatically.”