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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (152264)	9/25/2002 11:05:43 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1578202

Al, note the comments made by the Russians re the Chenchen rebels. Are the Russians starting to sound like us, or we starting to sound like them? What a mess. ted __________________________________________________________ US Lobbies NATO on Iraq By John Chalmers Reuters WARSAW, Poland (Sept. 25) - The United States said Wednesday it had enlisted support from NATO allies on the threat posed by Iraq, but alliance partner Russia said it was more at risk from rebels based in Georgia than from Baghdad. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the United States had presented evidence to its allies proving that there was a link between Baghdad and the al Qaeda network, which was blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities last year. But while Secretary of State Colin Powell declared in London that regime change in Baghdad was the best way to ensure that Iraq disarmed, Rumsfeld said Washington had made no decision yet on whether to take military action. ''You can be certain that if and when the president decides to do something that there'll be other nations assisting,'' he told a news conference after a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in the Polish capital, Warsaw. He said that some of the ministers -- who are mostly from European states hesitant to back Washington's drive to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power -- had approached him ''over the transom'' in Warsaw to express their support. RUSSIA PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON GEORGIA But Russia, attending the NATO meeting in its new role as an alliance partner, said Iraq was less worrying than the attacks it says are being launched on its soil by Chechen rebels hiding with impunity in neighboring Georgia. ''We have incontrovertible proof that the Georgian authorities are not taking effective action against this international terrorism,'' Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita. ''Our president has openly said that if Russia is again a victim of aggression we will have no other option but to strike and destroy the terrorists,'' he said. Russian media has speculated that Moscow is seeking a free hand from Washington to wipe out Chechen hide-outs in lawless areas of Georgia in return for backing U.S. moves on Iraq in the Security Council, where Russia holds a veto. Georgia has appealed for U.S. support against Russia and says the thousand troops it has sent to the remote Pankisi gorge neighboring Russia are making headway in ousting rebels. Russia scoffs at Tblisi's efforts as insufficient. British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said there could be no link made between Iraq and Georgia, and suggested that Moscow intensify dialogue with its neighbor to resolve the problem. ''We recognize that this is a very real threat to the Russian Federation and one they are clearly entitled to deal with, certainly on their own side of the border and -- in cooperation with Georgia -- across the border,'' he told reporters. Rumsfeld, noting that Ivanov had raised the Georgia issue at the NATO meeting Wednesday, insisted that there should be no bombing of the Pankisi gorge area. U.S., BRITAIN MAKE THEIR CASE The alliance's 19 defense ministers discussed Iraq over dinner Tuesday after a closed-door briefing by U.S. intelligence officials on Saddam's efforts to equip himself with weapons of mass destruction. They were also handed copies of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's dossier on Iraq, which asserted that the country could launch a nonconventional attack within 45 minutes. The campaign to convince Europeans Saddam is an urgent threat comes as the United States tries to prepare a Security Council resolution to stiffen a weapons inspections regime that will be acceptable to veto-wielding United Nations partners. Russia and France have not accepted the need for the resolution to include an ultimatum which, if defied, would authorize the U.S. to launch a devastating attack on Iraq that would end the rule of Saddam. Ivanov expressed little urgency in tackling the Iraq issue, saying weapons inspectors, which Baghdad has said can return to Iraq and have unfettered access, should be allowed some months to assess Iraqi denials they are producing deadly weaponry. ''I believe a few months of work will be quite sufficient to reach a final verdict,'' Ivanov said. He advocated a twin-track approach of weapons inspections running concurrently with Security Council discussion. The United States worries that without a deadline backed by the threat of force Iraq will string out weapons inspections as in the past. Reut09:19 09-25-02 Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited.