More nations attack Iraq documents
Britain and even France join the US in condemning the weapons declaration, saying it simply aims to dupe the world
LONDON - With the United States leading the charge, several countries yesterday called into question the declaration made by Iraq that it has no weapons of mass destruction.
Not mincing his words, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that President Saddam Hussein had put his country closer to war by trying to mislead the world with a 12,000-page declaration, which the US said was an 'incredible joke'.
On the Iraqi action, Mr Straw said: 'There has already been one trigger pulled. They now, in a sense, have their finger on the other trigger.'
While US and Britain will not launch an immediate attack on Iraq, he emphasised that a clear warning has to go out to Iraq that it must cooperate fully with the United Nations and its inspectors.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the US was 'disappointed but not deceived' by the Iraqi dossier.
Even France, which has taken a different tack from the US and Britain over the Iraqi issue, said that the declaration offerred little new information.
The French UN ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said: 'Despite its size, the Iraqi declaration contains little new.'
It 'did not give truthful answers to the questions put to it in 1998', he said, raising doubts over whether Iraq had actually suspended its prohibited activities.
'This first evaluation confirms the need to go forward and to give the inspectors total backing in their work,' he said at the end of a closed-door presentation by the chief weapons inspectors.
Taking a more cautious line, Canada and the European Union said that they would support a 'unified international response' to the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
A joint statement issued after talks between Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Dutch Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who presides over the European Council, and European Commission president Romano Prodi reiterated that key US allies want any military action against Mr Saddam to come under United Nations auspices.
'Dealing with the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme requires a unified international response,' the statement said.
Mr Chretien has said Canada would take part in a UN-authorised campaign against Iraq, but he remains unclear about his government's support for a US-led attack without UN backing.
The joint statement with the EU called for Iraq to comply with the UN resolution without conditions.
But Germany, Australia and Saudi Arabia were more muted in their responses and urged the US to give peace a chance.
German Defence Minister Peter Struck said yesterday that Berlin expected Iraq to be given a chance to improve its arms declaration.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard noted that while Iraq had failed to give a full account of its weapons, he did not adopt the US assessment of it.
'Our position is that we want Iraq to fully cooperate and fully disclose and fully comply, and if that happens we can avoid military conflict,' he said.
Agreeing that war should be avoided, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz urged the US to take a cautious stance.
'Prince Abdullah said a war should be avoided as it will not resolve the problem, but only have a negative impact on the region as well as the world,' his spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Iraq has denied that it failed to make a full declaration.
'Iraq is not in a material breach. This is the interpretation of the US and does not represent the interpretation of the whole international community,' Mr Mohammed Salman, Iraq's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said.
Iraq is not without its supporters. Some 160 European, US, and Arab anti-war activists meeting in Cairo said they planned to send 'human shields' to Iraq if the US decided to declare a war on Baghdad. --AP, AFP
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