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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (61716)	12/14/2002 1:55:06 PM
From: BigBull	Respond to of 281500

Well it's not quite time to "break out the Lilly Pads" yet, but definitely time to "warm up the tanks" if the article posted below is true on US declaring Iraq to be in "material breach." Imo one of the reasons the Mullah's are making their move now is because they think Saddam's day's are numbered. Last gasp desperation move. Doesn't really matter what you or I think; matters what they think. The mullah's have already said they think they're next. PS this article also confirms CB's post that Iraq nixed a 2 billion dollar oil deal with Russia. What is Saddam thinking? Has he lost it? US to claim Iraqi report a total failure news.scotsman.com FOREIGN STAFF THE United States is expected to declare next week that Iraq’s flawed declaration of its arms programmes is in "material breach" of UN resolution 1441, diplomats said. The 12,000-page document Iraq submitted to the UN fails to account for all of its chemical and biological agents, US officials now say. They cited as examples Iraq’s failure to explain what happened to 550 shells filled with mustard gas, plus 150 bombs filled with biological agents that the UN could not trace in the late 1990s. The document also failed to provide answers as to why, as claimed in the British government’s dossier on Iraqi weapons, Iraq made renewed attempts to acquire nuclear materials and technology. The early judgment on the Iraqi declaration - that it is mostly old material, and leaves many unanswered questions - will not be used by the US as an immediate excuse for war, diplomats said. Indeed, Washington appears to be playing down the military rhetoric, for now. President George Bush was reported as saying in a television interview to be broadcast last night that "war is my last option, not my first option. "I don’t want to prejudge the report," he said. "But my gut feeling about Saddam Hussein is that he is a man who deceives, denies. He’s a man who states his power through torture and murder." There is still no sign of a stampede to build up overwhelming military forces in the Gulf region, analysts say, and Britain has yet to commit troops. The US wants to be seen giving the UN time to reach its own conclusions. But equally the US, by challenging the dossier, could be laying the ground for military action early in the New Year, after UN inspectors have returned their official verdict in January on Iraq’s claims it has no banned weapons. The preliminary US assessment of the Iraqi document was backed yesterday by some UN staff, though the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has yet to deliver an official verdict. "There doesn’t seem to be an awful lot in there that’s new. And a hell of a lot of it seems much the same in a 1996 declaration when Iraq gave a full declaration," said a UN diplomat.