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Posted on 01/23/2003 5:11:46 PM PST by kattracks
President George Bush is determined to go to war with Saddam Hussein in the next few weeks, without UN backing if necessary, according to authoritative sources in Washington and London.The US president is "to turn up the heat" in his state of the union address on Tuesday.
"The pressure comes from President Bush and it is felt all the way down," a European official said. "They're talking about weeks, not months. Months is a banned word now."
Mr Bush wanted the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, to force the issue of military action by presenting evidence of Saddam Hussein's violations of UN resolutions immediately after weapons inspectors give their report to the UN on Monday. In Washington circles such an event is being referred to as the Adlai Stevenson moment.
The "Adlai Stevenson moment" has become Washington shorthand for the US presentation of its intelligence case. Stevenson was the US ambassador to the UN at the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, who dramatically confronted the Soviet envoy with vivid aerial photographs of nuclear missiles being unloaded in Cuba.
Downing Street was alarmed by the Bush administration's sudden haste in moving towards a climax. It was adamant that the decision to go to war should not be declared before Tony Blair flies to Camp David for talks with Mr Bush next Friday.
An informed source in Washington said: "Blair is a good guy. They won't want to do that to him. They want it to look like he played a part in the policy-making but the decision has been made."
A key moment will now be the state of the union address. According to a Washington source, the US administration remains divided along old fault lines about the precise timescale of war. The US secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld, wants Mr Bush to set a clear and imminent deadline. But Mr Powell, is resisting, asking for a little more time for diplomatic coalition-building.
But both sides of the divide are making it increasingly clear that the end result will be military action, with or without UN backing.
The chief White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, yesterday brushed off mounting anti-war feeling across Europe, led by France. It was "entirely possible that France won't be on the line", he said, adding that Britain, Australia, Italy, Spain and "virtually all of the eastern European countries" would provide support.
Mr Powell echoed this, saying: "I don't think we will have to worry about going it alone."
The impatience within the White House for action against Iraq came on a day in which the cracks in the international coalition against Iraq widened. China and Russia joined France and Germany in warning the US against precipitate action and calling for Washington to work within the UN.
The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, revealed the extent of European anger over the US position when he told Washington to "cool down". The Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, said: "Russia deems that there is no evidence that would justify a war in Iraq."
Mr Blair now finds himself perilously close to his nightmare scenario - sandwiched between a US administration bent on war and the rest of Europe either openly hostile to military action or passively resistant.
Britain believes it has won a short reprieve before the US presents its own intelligence evidence against Saddam Hussein, in effect a declaration of war, but only for a fortnight at most.
Mr Bush will lay out the broad case for toppling President Saddam next Tuesday but White House officials insist the speech, a year after the president coined the phrase, "axis of evil", will stop short of being a declaration of war. That will await a more detailed presentation of intelligence evidence in the next few weeks, after Mr Blair visits Camp David.
"We said that has to be a substantive consultation, not a fait accompli," one British official said. The British argument is that the longer the US waits before showing its hand, the better the case it will have to put before the UN security council, as the inspectors come across more Iraqi infringements.
The Foreign Office had initially sought to defuse the rising tension around next Monday's inspectors' report by denying that it represented a "moment of truth", but in recent days a source conceded: "That was never going to be realistic. Of course it's important."
At his meeting with Mr Powell yesterday, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, clung to the official line. "There are still ways that this can be resolved peacefully," he said. Mr Straw repeated that the British preference is for a second UN resolution before any further action against Iraq but Mr Powell, in a change of tack, refused to commit himself to seeking a second resolution.
One of the factors behind Washington's haste appears to be the annual rise in temperatures in the Iraqi desert over the next few months. In theory, US and some allied troops have the capacity to fight in any weather but the effectiveness of both soldiers and equipment diminishes rapidly when the temperature rises over 35C.
"The planes have been designed for the cold war. They start losing lift, carry lighter loads, and must make shorter runs when the temperature goes over 35," said one government official involved in Anglo-American debates over the timing of an attack.
Go Go Bush. Down Down Saddam.
Bush and Blair will each keep his options open, until actually launching any invasion, because keeping options open is what a good leader does. The Guardian may have found some blabbermouth nobodies willing to tell them waht they want to hear, but that does not make this a legitimate news story.
To judge what Bush will do, read his speeches, and ignore the far-left Guardian.
Go Go Bush. Down Down Saddam.
I'm willing to take some heat for the following, but I think everyone needs to get some perspective. I currently have 26 very close friends serving in the Gulf and in Afghanistan and they're the ones who are going to have to bear the brunt of the hell of war. So let me make one thing perfectly clear, I support the President, I want Saddam gone, I want the destruction of WMDs in Iraq, but George W. Bush will not hear one round fired in anger during this war.
This isn't a fricken football game and instead of being fan-like in the adoration of the President, how about wishing the troops good skill, luck and Godspeed. They're the ones that deserve it most.
So the Guardian thinks Rumsfeld is Secretary of State? I'd say the author is ....well...uninformed.
Good points
.
Sorry, it does not matter to any non-English-speaking country, except maybe Israel and Kuwait, how strong the case is. Countries like France, Russia, and China insisted on Blix (rather than an honest Swede such as Rolf Ekeus) heading the inspectors because they do not want, and will not accept, a strong case.
No one likes us
I don't know why.
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try.
But all around even our old friends put us down.
Let's drop the big one and see what happens.
We give them money
But are they grateful?
No they're spiteful
And they're hateful.
Now Asia's crowded
And Europe's too old.
And Canada's too cold.
And South America stole our name.
Let's drop the big one; there'll be no one left to blame us.
Bridge:
We'll save Australia;
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo.
We'll build an all-American amusement park there;
They've got surfing, too.
Well, boom goes London,
And boom Paris.
More room for you
And more room for me.
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town.
Oh, how peaceful it'll be;
We'll set everybody free;
You'll have Japanese kimonos, baby,
There'll be Italian shoes for me.
They all hate us anyhow,
So let's drop the big one now.
Let's drop the big one now.
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Randy Newman, sage or prophet?
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