- The Bush administration's internal differences over military
action in Iraq became glaringly apparent yesterday as Colin Powell, the
cautious-minded US Secretary of State, said he supported the return of
UN inspectors as a "first step" towards neutralising Saddam Hussein's
weapons of mass destruction.
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- Mr Powell's words directly contradicted a series of speeches
by Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said the time for inspections was over
and that a pre-emptive strike was the only viable solution.
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- Mr Powell, speaking in an interview with the BBC to be
aired next weekend, insisted that the President was in favour of sending
in the inspectors, although he did not necessarily expect that to solve
the problem.
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- "Iraq has been in violation of these many UN resolutions
for most of the last 11 or so years. So as a first step, let's see what
the inspectors find, send them back in, why are they being kept out,"
Mr Powell said.
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- The Secretary of State also acknowledged the need to
sell the rationale for war to America's allies. "The world has to
be presented with the information, with the intelligence that is available,"
he said. "A debate is needed within the international community so
that everybody can make a judgement about this." It was not immediately
clear if Mr Powell's words reflected a growing hesitation within the administration.
A spokesman for the administration yesterday denied any rift.
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- Mr Powell's statement came as Tony Blair faced fresh
calls to publish a dossier of evidence to substantiate claims about the
dangers of President Saddam's arsenal of biological and nuclear weapons.
Tory MPs joined their Labour and Liberal Democrat colleagues and trades
unionists yesterday in calling for the Prime Minister to publish the evidence.
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- Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith urged Mr Blair to spell
out the "clear and growing danger" represented by President Saddam.
But divisions among Conservative MPs also emerged yesterday after Mr Duncan
Smith and the Tory chairman, Theresa May, said the party backed a military
strike against President Hussein.
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- Senior Tory MPs such as Peter Ainsworth and Sir Peter
Tapsell expressed concern about their leader's position and said UK support
for military action should only be a last resort after diplomatic avenues
had been exhausted. Their comments came after Mr Duncan Smith said in a
Sunday newspaper that the question was not whether the Allies dealt with
Hussein "but when and how".
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- Seventy-one per cent of Britons oppose joining a war
on Iraq without United Nations approval, according to an ICM poll for the
Daily Mirror and GMTV.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=329676
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