- (AFP) -- President George W Bush said today he would
go to US lawmakers with a resolution against Iraq in the next 48 hours,
even as the UN Security Council remained deeply divided over how to confront
the regime of Saddam Hussein.
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- The US president called Saddam "more and more a
threat to world peace", after being caught flatfooted by Iraq's surprise
offer earlier this week to unconditionally allow UN arms inspectors to
return after a four-year stand-off.
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- Bush has scorned the Iraqi offer as a ploy, while Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned the US Congress that Iraq posed the most
"immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability
of the world".
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- Rumsfeld's testimony to the US House Armed Services Committee
marked the opening salvo in what is expected to be a US campaign for a
UN resolution authorising use of force against Iraq.
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- Iraq and the UN, meanwhile, were to continue talks in
Vienna in October on the terms allowing arms inspectors to ensure Iraq
is not developing weapons of mass destruction, in violation of the 1991
ceasefire accords which ended the Gulf War.
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- British Prime Minister Tony Blair appealed to big powers
to "keep up the pressure" on Iraq to ensure Saddam Hussein makes
good on his pledge to allow the weapons experts to pursue the disarmament
effort.
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- "It's the pressure that has brought him (Saddam)
to this position," Blair said.
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- Britain has been as scornful of Saddam as Bush, even
after Monday's offer, while the other three permanent members of the Security
Council - China, France and Russia, want Baghdad to be given a chance.
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- "This is an important moment for our country and
for the international community to work together," Senate Majority
Leader Tom Daschle, who heads the opposition Democrats, told reporters
after meeting with Bush.
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- The legislators face a race against the clock to hurry
through a resolution before they adjourn in October to campaign for Congressional
elections in November. Democrats had earlier warned it could take a long
time before Congress would act.
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- The White House has repeatedly insisted the president
has not decided whether to go to war against Saddam, and today it was still
unclear how the resolution would be worded.
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- Washington has met Baghdad's offer on the inspectors
with scorn, steadfastly sticking to its goal to remove Saddam Hussein from
power in its next step in the self-declared "war on terrorism".
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- "It's his latest ploy, his latest attempt not to
be held accountable for defying the United Nations," Bush told reporters.
"He's not going to fool anybody. We've seen him before."
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- "We'll remind the world that, by defying resolutions,
he's become more and more of a threat to world peace."
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- The world "must rise up and deal with this threat,
and that's what we expect the Security Council to do," the president
said of the need for a strict new UN resolution.
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- Bush's tough stance was boosted by a new opinion poll.
The CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey showed that 93 per cent of respondents
believed the United Nations should pass a resolution imposing a deadline
on Iraq to submit to weapons inspections or face grave consequences.
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- Rumsfeld reeled off a list of past Iraqi aggression,
and said: "What has not changed is Iraq's drive to acquire those weapons
of mass destruction, and the fact that every approach that the United Nations
has taken to stop Iraq's drive has failed.
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- "This is a critical moment for our country and for
the world. Our resolve is being put to the test. It is a test unfortunately
the world's free nations have failed before in recent history with unfortunate
consequences," he said.
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- As Rumsfeld was beginning his statement, two protesters
briefly disrupted the session chanting "inspections, not war"
before they were led from the room.
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- Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri called on close ally
Russia to "intervene" to prevent the adoption by the UN of a
US-sponsored resolution on arms inspections in Iraq.
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- "Iraq wishes to see Russia and all other countries...
intervene to deprive the United States of the international cover it is
seeking for its aggression" against Iraq, he said.
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- Former UN weapons inspector, Australian Richard Butler,
echoed some of Washington's scepticism today.
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- "'Come back to the country without conditions' sounds
good, but what we really needed to hear (was that) you can inspect without
conditions," said Butler, who headed the team that was pulled out
in 1998 shortly before intensive US and British bombing of Iraq, whom they
accused of failing to cooperate with the UN teams.
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- Pope John Paul II stepped into the fray and hailed the
"goodwill" of Saddam and urged world leaders to listen to the
Iraqi leader.
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- "I urge you to continue to pray to the Saviour to
enlighten the leaders of nations, to support demonstrations of goodwill
and lead humanity, already afflicted by so much pain, to relations free
of war and violence," he said Wednesday at the Vatican.
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- In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, a vehement
opponent of unilateral or UN-authorised strikes on Iraq, said military
action was now unnecessary given the Iraqi offer.
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- "We must seize the opportunity. Falling back on
the old positions will not help now," Schroeder told the daily General
Anzeiger, in its edition to appear Thursday.
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- Asked if a military strike on Iraq was now "superfluous,"
he agreed. "That is correct."
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- Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was meet for
the second time this week with Sabri as the top UN arms inspector prepared
to brief the Security Council on practical aspects of restarting work in
Iraq.
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- The chief UN arms inspector, Hans Blix, was to go to
the Council on Thursday to speak on the practical arrangements for taking
up the Iraqi offer.
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