Inevitable war?
Time has run out for any Iraqi compromises say US officials. Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington
The US administration is leaving little doubt about the inevitability of war against Iraq. Baghdad's announcement on Monday that it would allow the use of US-made U-2 surveillance planes, pass legislation banning the production of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and allow more private interviews with scientists were all brushed aside as no more than tactical moves by President George W Bush and his top aides.
Sitting next to Australian Prime Minister John Howard, the US president told reporters "Iraq needs to disarm, and the reason why we even need to fly U-2 flights is because they're not disarming." "This is a man [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] who is trying to stall for time. He's trying to play a diplomatic game."
But the real setback for Washington this week came from "old Europe", the term US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld used to refer to France and Germany. Worse, Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom Bush claims a strong friendship, joined the French and Germans in opposing war.
In a carefully worded statement on Monday France, Germany and Russia insisted "there is still an alternative to war. The use of force can only be considered as a last resort."
Security Council Resolution 1441, which the US drafted and pressed other countries to approve in early November, provides, they said, "a framework the potential of which has not yet been fully exploited".
While Washington believes it does not need a second Security Council resolution it is keen to secure backing within the UN for a reported British draft that allows the use of force against Iraq. The French-German- Russian is a major stumbling block in this regard. Both France and Russia have a veto, while Germany chairs the Council until the end of February. Despite such opposition, US officials say they plan to go back to the Security Council seeking backing for a second resolution after the senior UN inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed El-Barad'ei, deliver their update to Council members tomorrow.
President Bush, US Secretary of State Powell, and Blix have all dismissed Franco-German proposals to triple the number of UN weapons inspectors, arguing that Iraqi compliance is the issue and not the number of inspectors.
In an interview with Al-Ahram's Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Nafie, Powell (see p.12) denied that Washington had received any proposals by Germany and France to place thousands of UN peace-keepers in Iraq. He said these were only press reports that had been immediately dismissed by Paris and Bonn.
Adding insult to injury France, Germany and Belgium blocked a US request to members of NATO to provide military assistance to Turkey in case war breaks out against Iraq. The three countries argued that such a step would signal their approval of US intentions to launch a war against Iraq.
"Upset is not the proper word," Bush said when reporters asked for his views on the French position. "I am disappointed that France would block NATO from helping a country like Turkey to prepare," he said.
Defence Secretary Rumsfeld said France, Germany and Belgium had made a mistake over the defence of Turkey but that the move would not delay any attack. Planning would go on outside NATO if necessary, he said.
Rumsfeld told reporters at a Pentagon press conference with the Australian prime minister that the dispute in Brussels did not mean that NATO was disintegrating.
"At the moment what it means is that three European countries are isolated from the rest of the NATO alliance. Sixteen countries -- two North American and 14 in Europe -- don't agree with those three countries," Rumsfeld said.
With the American public wary about the prospect of war and uneasiness abroad expressed in increasingly explicit terms Bush continues to count on the support of Italy, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and 10 eastern European nations, as well as Australia.
In an acknowledgment of the sharp divisions between some European countries and the US Greece, currently the president of the European Union, has proposed an emergency summit to forge a European consensus on how to deal with Iraq.
"There is clearly a desire for more coordination in the European Union," Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou said. "I had the initial feeling there was a sense of inevitability, that (war) would happen whether we did anything or not. That is no longer true," he added.
But it is not only Washington that is getting ready for the prospect of a US war against Iraq. UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan announced this week that he has invited the Security Council to discuss humanitarian planning in the case of war.
"We are doing contingency planning... so that we'll not be caught unprepared if... things were to go in the military way," he said. "We've had enough experience in other crises to understand that we must make some arrangements and preparations."
Annan invited the 15 Council members to meet with him today, two days before Switzerland hosts an international conference in Geneva to prepare for the humanitarian consequences of war in Iraq.
