- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
White House on Monday dismissed Iraq's unconditional offer for the return
of U.N. weapons inspectors, calling it a tactic that would fail and insisting
a U.N. resolution requiring Iraq to disarm was still needed.
-
- White House officials heaped scorn on Iraq's offer, made
under world pressure and a threat of U.S. military action, to allow U.N.
weapons inspectors back into the country, and urged the Security Council
not to be swayed against taking tough action on Iraq.
-
- "This is a tactical step by Iraq in hopes of avoiding
strong U.N. Security Council action. As such it is a tactic that will fail.
It is time for the Security Council to act," said White House spokesman
Scott McClellan.
-
- Iraq agreed on Monday to allow the unconditional return
of U.N. arms inspectors. They were pulled out of Iraq in December 1998
on the eve of U.S.-British bombing raids and had not been permitted to
return.
-
- The Iraqi move came as the United States seeks support
in the United Nations for a resolution requiring Iraq to disarm. Washington
accuses Iraq of developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
-
- The offer risked undermining the momentum the United
States has built up against Saddam in the wake of President Bush's speech
last Thursday to the United Nations at which he said the U.N. risked becoming
irrelevant if it did not respond forcefully to Iraqi intransigence.
-
- "This is not a matter of inspections," McClellan
said. "It is about disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
and the Iraqi regime's compliance with 11 other Security Council resolutions."
-
- McClellan said the U.N. Security Council "needs
to decide how to enforce its own resolutions, which the Iraqi regime has
defied for more than a decade."
-
- "This will require a new, effective U.N. Security
Council resolution that will actually deal with the threat Saddam Hussein
poses to the Iraqi people, to the region, and to the world," he said.
-
- A senior State Department official, with Secretary of
State Colin Powell at the United Nations, said the new resolution "should
make clear that there are consequences" if Iraq fails to comply.
-
- "The first step in any kind of dialogue is for the
council to make clear through its resolution what inspections without conditions
means, what compliance means and what Iraq needs to do," the official
said.
-
- 'EXPECTING THIS KIND OF THING'
-
- U.S. officials said they were not surprised by the Iraqi
move. "We were expecting this kind of thing," said one White
House official.
-
- "When we see a new (U.N.) resolution, we'll see
if they're serious," the official said of the Iraqis.
-
- U.S. officials said they believed other members of the
Security Council would remain tough against Iraq.
-
- "In the days since the president's speech we have
seen extraordinary support for this approach by the president, and we have
every expectation that that support will continue to grow," said a
White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
-
- Bush last Thursday challenged the United Nations to enforce
U.N. resolutions requiring Iraq to disarm or else the United States would
be forced to act on its own. Then Bush said on Friday he was "highly
doubtful" that Saddam would ever comply given his past history.
-
- Bush, in addition to Iraq's disarmament, demanded Iraq
end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, cease persecution
of its civilian population, release or account for all Gulf War personnel
whose fate is still unknown, and end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food
program.
-
- White House communications director Dan Bartlett called
the Iraqi offer an attempt at giving "false hope to the international
community that he (Saddam) means business this time. Unfortunately, his
more than decade of experience shows you can put very little into his words
or deeds."
-
- "We've made it very clear that we are not in the
business of negotiating with Saddam Hussein," Bartlett said.
-
- In a speech on Monday in Iowa, Bush called the threat
posed by Iraq "one of the clearest threats we face."
-
- "We, the world, cannot let the world's worst leaders
harbor and develop the world's worst weapons. This tyrant must be dealt
with, for the sake of our children and our children's children," he
said.
|