Ted, It looks more and more like Bush is no longer in charge....
Rumsfeld: Allied Support Not Vital
Wed Aug 28, 7:46 AM ET
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is casting Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites) as a menace who cannot be appeased
and suggesting that it may not wait for full allied support before launching an
attack.
"It's less important to have unanimity than it is
making the right decision and doing the right thing,
even though at the outset it may seem lonesome,"
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said
Tuesday.
After President Bush ( news - web sites) met at his
ranch in Crawford, Texas, with Saudi Arabia's Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, White House spokesman Ari
Fleischer ( news - web sites) said Bush told the
Saudi ambassador he had not yet decided whether to
attack.
"The president made very clear again that he believes
that Saddam Hussein is a menace to world peace, a
menace to regional peace," Fleischer said. The
Saudis strongly oppose U.S. military action.
In a lively exchange with Marines at Camp Pendleton,
Calif., Rumsfeld predicted that most U.S. friends and
allies would support American U.S. military action
against Iraq if that is what Bush decides is required
to deal with the threat of being attacked with
weapons of mass destruction. So far no allies have
voiced firm support. Many have raised great doubts or
outright opposition.
"Leadership in the right direction finds followers and
supporters," Rumsfeld told members of the 1st
Marine Division, who peppered the defense secretary
with numerous questions about war against Iraq.
When a Marine asked whether Rumsfeld thought
victory in Iraq would take long to achieve, he refused
to answer directly. "The frenzy on this subject, it seems to me, is not useful,"
he said.
On a day when Bush administration officials told friends and allies around the
world it is not rushing to war against Iraq, two key Arab allies — Egypt and
Saudi Arabia — voiced their objections to U.S. military action against Iraq. In a
diplomatic offensive, Iraq sent top officials to China and Syria to press its case.
Bush has not decided how to try to remove the Saddam regime, "and therefore
there are no war drums to beat," State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher told reporters Tuesday.
In Iraq, U.S. fighter jets attacked an air defense command facility Tuesday near
the southern city of Nukhayb and a military radar site near the northern city of
Mosul. In both cases, U.S. officials said, the U.S. planes were responding to
Iraqi provocations while they patrolled flight-interdiction zones in effect since the
Persian Gulf War ( news - web sites).
In his remarks at Camp Pendleton, Rumsfeld stressed more than once that
Bush had yet to make a decision about Iraq. He said America and its allies
need to think carefully about 21st century security threats, especially the
unpredictability of terrorists in possession of weapons of mass destruction.
"We do need to take some time and think these things through and consider
them," he said.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ( news - web sites), a major U.S. ally in the
Middle East, said in Cairo that "if you strike at the Iraqi people because of one
or two individuals and leave the Palestinian issue (unsolved), not a single (Arab)
ruler will be able to curb the (rising) popular sentiments."
The Saudis, which strongly backed the United States in the 1991 Gulf War
against Iraq, warned that a U.S. strike could have grave consequences,
including the breakup of Iraq with Kurdish and Shiite states emerging.
"There is no country I know of supporting force at this time," Adel el-Jubeir,
foreign policy adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah, said in an Associated Press
interview. Abdullah is the Saudis' de facto ruler due to King Fahd's chronic
illness.
El-Jubeir advised the Bush administration to rely on the United Nations ( news -
web sites) to persuade Iraq to reopen suspect weapons sites to unfettered
international inspection.
Vice President Dick Cheney ( news - web sites) took U.S. war rhetoric to new
heights in a speech Monday.
After calling Iraq a mortal threat, he said: "We will not simply look away, hope
for the best and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve."
Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, kept up pressure
demanding that Bush seek congressional approval before sending U.S. troops
against Iraq.
In Nashville, Tenn., Rep. Ike Skelton ( news, bio, voting record), D-Mo., the
senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said it is
"absolutely necessary" that Congress approve any action beforehand. So far,
Skelton said, too many questions are unanswered.
"This is the great unanswered question: What do you do with Iraq once you
topple Saddam Hussein?" he said. |
