Posted on 09/07/2002 1:42:20 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
President Bush said Saturday there is ample evidence Iraq's Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction.
He cited satellite photos released by a U.N. agency that show unexplained construction at Iraq sites that weapons inspectors once visited to search for evidence Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms.
"I don't know what more evidence we need" to make the case for taking action against the Iraqi president, Bush said as he greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David for a weekend strategy session on Iraq.
Bush greeted the British leader as he got off a helicopter at the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin mountains. The two were to hold several hours of discussions before Blair returned to London.
Blair encouraged allies to join the United States and Britain in challenging Iraq. "This is a problem and we can't ignore it," he said en route to the United States.
The meeting came five days before Bush addresses the United Nations ( news - web sites), where he is expected to challenge the international community to take quick, tough action to disarm Saddam or the United States will be obligated to act on its own to remove Saddam, according to advisers involved in writing the speech.
Bush will tell the United Nations there is no time to waste; one early draft refers to Iraq as a "ticking time bomb."
Blair, nearly alone among world leaders as an unflinching ally with Bush against Iraq, cast doubt on whether Iraq would ever allow U.N. weapons inspectors the freedom to work effectively.
"I have to point out that we have got to see this in the light of experience. Why did the inspectors go? It was because the inspectors found they couldn't do their work. Whatever weapons inspection regime is put in has to be one that's very effective," Blair told reporters as he flew to the United States.
Blair said the international community agreed that Saddam had to be dealt with "one way or another."
"I think most people are at first base, which is that yes, this is a problem and we can't ignore it," Blair said, according to Press Association, Britain's national news agency.
Bush is strongly considering a U.N. Security Council resolution that would set a deadline for Iraq to open its weapons sites to unfettered inspection and to apply punitive action if the Iraqi president refuses.
Saddam refuses to allow inspectors into his country and says Iraq has already destroyed its weapons of mass destruction.
Senior Bush advisers acknowledge that Bush is setting the stage for a confrontation with Saddam, with the U.N. speech a last-ditch attempt to build an international coalition. The president assumes the outcome eventually will lead to military force, aides said.
Foreign leaders, however, held out hope Saturday for a diplomatic solution.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said in Italy that he believed there is a "strong possibility" weapons inspectors will be allowed to return to Iraq and have unlimited access to "whatever sites" they wanted to see.
Homeland security chief Tom Ridge said he had a "very appropriate" meeting with Moussa and that Bush had yet to decide on a possible U.S. attack.
Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, told reporters in Moscow that his government believes a quick and unconditional return of the inspectors could ease the crisis.
But Iraq's information minister said Saturday in Jordan that the United States only cares about "a change in the political regime in Iraq."
"To hell with them," Mohammad Saeed Sahaf said of the U.S. government. "They, their sons and their grandchildren will be changed and the regime in Iraq won't be."
In Blair, the U.S. president has an outspoken supporter of his Iraq policy despite criticism from the British public, his own party and others in Europe.
Blair said last week his government hoped to soon publish a dossier of evidence on the Iraqi president's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. Britain released a similar paper against Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites) and his al-Qaida network just days before the start of the U.S.- and British-led strikes in Afghanistan ( news - web sites).
Blair has helped to rally international support, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin ( news - web sites) and French President Jacques Chirac and meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud.
Bush on Friday called Putin, Chirac and Chinese President Jiang Zemin ( news - web sites) — all opposed to a unilateral U.S. military strike against Iraq. They promised to hear — but not necessarily to endorse — Bush's case against Saddam when administration teams visit their three capitals, senior officials said.
Bush plans to see Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien in Detroit on Monday and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barosso at the White House on Tuesday.
The Washington Post reported, meanwhile, that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's office on Friday night withdrew a 2,300-word article he had written for Sunday's editions making the case for pre-emptive military action.
The article cited the three countries Bush has called the "axis of evil" — Iraq, Iran and North Korea ( news - web sites) — as well as Libya and Syria.
Pentagon ( news - web sites) spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Rumsfeld withdrew the article because the timing "was not right," the Post reported.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
You forgot to add: </rhetorical question>
Maybe. Or a cruise missle or daisy-cutter. Or one of his own.
....The same liberal media that was so gung-ho - downright mongerish - about going to war in the Balkans, which posed absolutely NO threat to the U.S.
It's disgusting that even in times like these, when the U.S. is under direct attack from organized terrorist groups and their state sponsors (some of which have WMD, and wouldn't hesitite to use them on us), the media still chooses plays politics with thinly disguised leftist editorials.
I'm trying to think ahead to the inevitable, because I suspect the Left will drag their feet and hinder this president just long enough to have many thousands of Americans killed by this maniac.
If this case is as thin (and embarrassing) as the last one, little wonder Dubya has Poodle Boy publish these things.
You could ask one of the jingoistic keyboard warriors on this board,..or you could ask Terry Ritter USMC, and recent Iraq weapons inspector. Ritter, says Saddam doesnt have WMD or the means to deliver.
The Bush administration has been strong in its support for measures that destroy American sovereignty. "Free Trade" and wide-open borders are threats to our sovereignty.
Wasn't this the war that Clinton told us and the other side that he would not use ground troops. All the better to keep the media and the followers on his side.
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