- (AFP) - US President George W. Bush vowed to "deal
with" Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and called on Washington's Middle
Eastern allies to "work in concert to confront this
danger."
-
- "He is a problem, and we're going to deal with him.
But the first stage is to consult with our allies and friends, and that's
exactly what we're doing," he told reporters amid concerns that
Washington
may take unilateral action.
-
- While not explicitly addressing that worry, Bush warned
that "all options are on the table" and stressed that "one
thing I will not allow is a nation such as Iraq to threaten our very future
by developing weapons of mass destruction."
-
- The US leader's comments came as Vice President Dick
Cheney toured the Middle East to drum up support for expanding the US-led
"war on terrorism" beyond military action in Afghanistan -- and
possibly to Iraq.
-
- "What the vice president is doing, is he's reminding
people about this danger and that we need to work in concert to confront
this danger," Bush explained during a wide-ranging news conference
at the White House.
-
- Cheney's Arab tour has so far taken him to Jordan as
well as Egypt, and he is scheduled to travel on to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Yemen. He will also
visit Israel and Turkey.
-
- Washington has long accused Baghdad of nurturing close
ties to terrorists and seeking to add nuclear arms to an arsenal already
thought to comprise chemical and biological weapons that it could put at
violent groups' disposal.
-
- And the US president, who declared a global war on
terrorism
after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon, recently declared Iraq part of an "axis of evil"
with North Korea and Iran.
-
- That term -- and significant US hostility towards Baghdad
since the 1991 Gulf War -- sparked international worries that Washington
may choose to attack Iraq, over objections from the Arab world and key
US allies elsewhere.
-
- US officials, however, have insisted that no military
action is imminent and that the "axis" designation was a
successful
effort to draw global attention to those regimes' nature and activities,
especially possible ties to terrorists.
-
- "I am deeply concerned about Iraq," said Bush,
whose father, former president George Bush waged the 1991 Gulf War with
Cheney as his defense secretary.
-
- Iraq "is a nation run by a man who is willingly
to kill his own people by using chemical weapons; a man who won't let
inspectors
into the country; a man who's obviously got something to hide," he
added.
-
- Bush's comment came as the Times of London reported that
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw believes Iraq is just five years of
developing a crude nuclear device unless its weapons programme is
halted.
-
- The warning is contained in a document prepared for a
private briefing late Tuesday for members of parliament of the ruling
Labour
Party.
-
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