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Politics : Those Damned Democrat's -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (557)	9/21/2002 10:57:59 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 1604

Congress Wants to Know Cost of War Dissatisfied With Pentagon Figures, Lawmakers Ask CBO for Estimates URL: washingtonpost.com

To: calgal who wrote (557)	9/21/2002 11:03:17 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 1604

Bush Given Plan on How to Oust Saddam URL: foxnews.com Gen. Tommy Franks Saturday, September 21, 2002 WASHINGTON — President Bush has been given a detailed Pentagon plan containing military options for deposing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. At the same time, U.S. troops are gearing up to move in on Saddam if and when word comes from the White House that the United States will attack. A senior defense official says the highly classified plan was delivered to the White House in early September by General Tommy Franks, the Central Command chief who would be in charge of executing any military action in Iraq. Bush has made no decision on Iraq, White House spokesman Sean McCormack said. "He has options before him, and he is reviewing his options." Franks, who oversaw military action in Afghanistan, held a news conference Saturday while in Kuwait visiting troops. Kuwait would be a likely launching pad for an attack against Iraq. Franks said his forces are ready to go if called upon and acknowledged increased military exercises in the Gulf region. Further U.S.-Kuwaiti amphibious, ground, air and naval training exercises, called "Eager Mace," were expected to begin this month. Asked whether U.S. forces in the region were ready for war, Franks said: "We are prepared to undertake whatever activities and whatever actions we may be directed to take by our nation." But, he noted: "Our president has not made a decision to go to war. Franks made clear that regardless of the decision, U.S. handling of Iraq will differ from the course taken in the 1991 Gulf War. Efforts since then have focused on containing Saddam and demanding compliance with U.N. resolutions through a low-key campaign of air strikes on Iraqi targets. "The only course of action that is not available to us is to continue the course of action that we've seen over the last 11 years, where we've seen United Nations' Security Council resolutions one after the other defied," Franks said. While in Kuwait, Franks said he met with Defense Minister Sheik Jaber Mubarak Al Hamad and U.S. military officials at bases in Kuwait. Meanwhile, the Reuters news service reports that Iraq said Saturday it would not cooperate with any new United Nations Security Council resolution that runs contrary to an agreement reached with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "Iraq announces that it will not cooperate with a new resolution which is different to what was agreed upon with the (U.N.) secretary-general," said a statement issued following a meeting of top Iraqi leaders chaired by Saddam and carried by the state-run Baghdad radio. "The American officials are trying ... to issue new, bad resolutions from the Security Council," the statement said. McCormack said the White House found it "very disappointing that Iraq says it will not abide by future resolutions." "We are working very hard within the international community, and specifically in the United Nations, to address in an effective way the issue of Iraqi noncompliance," McCormack said. "As the president has said, this is an important test of the United Nations' resolve." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday that the Iraqi comment was in character. "Anyone who has watched the past decade has seen the Iraqi government ... change their position depending on what they thought was tactically advantageous to them and kind of jerk the United Nations around," he said. "So it is no surprise at all." The United States and Britain have stepped up pressure on the U.N. Security Council to adopt a tough new Iraq resolution before any resumption of U.N. arms inspections. British U.N. Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock met the 10 non-permanent members of the 15-nation Security Council late on Friday to lobby for a new resolution demanding unfettered access for the arms experts and spelling out the consequences if Baghdad failed to cooperate. Rumsfeld also held out the possibility that Saddam might flee Iraq to avoid a conflict. "I'm sure there are countries that would be delighted to have him," he said in a television interview. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is consulting with Russia and other countries on a new U.N. resolution that would threaten Iraq with war if it does not meet its decade-old obligation to disarm. The United States and Britain are trying to overcome resistance from Russia, China and France, all with veto powers, to leveling new demands without proof. "The goal is disarmament. The goal is not inspections. And inspections can work if a country is cooperative and they want to prove to the world that they have, in fact, disarmed," Rumsfeld said. "In this instance, to favor inspections, one would have to make a conscious judgment that Iraq was cooperative. And that means they'd have to review the past decade and come to that conclusion. And that's a difficult thing for a reasonable person to do, it seems to me." On Friday, Kuwait's official news agency quoted Foreign Minister Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah as saying his country would back any U.N.-led action against Iraq, including military, but that Baghdad's recent decision to allow the return of weapons inspectors would avert another Gulf war. Like other Arab nations, Kuwait publicly opposes any unilateral U.S. action. The Associated Press contributed to this report.