Steve Quayle News Alerts

September 13, 2002

"We have to work on resolutions that hold Iraq to account. They can't be resolutions of the kind we've seen in the past." - Secretary of State Colin Powell

(CBS) President Bush said Friday he was "highly doubtful" Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would meet U.S. disarmament demands and that he hoped the United Nations will take action on Iraq in days or weeks.

Mr. Bush, a day after laying out at harsh indictment of Iraq in a U.N. General Assembly speech, told reporters he expected any U.N. resolutions on Iraq to set deadlines for Iraqi compliance.

"I am highly doubtful that he'll meet our demands," Mr. Bush said as he met with African leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. "I hope he does, but I'm highly doubtful."

Asked how quickly he wanted the United Nations to act, the president said: "We expect quick resolution to the issue."

Only Britain stands firmly with the United States in its approach to Iraq's Saddam Hussein. The three other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Russia, China and France, have the power to veto and torpedo a resolution.

Secretary of State Colin Powell's tough assignment Friday is to try to gain their support.

Powell has a luncheon scheduled with the foreign ministers of Russia, France, Britain and China, and a separate session with the other members of the Council.

He'll also meet separately with Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan of China and, briefly, with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepan.

"We have to work on resolutions that hold Iraq to account. They can't be resolutions of the kind we've seen in the past," he said Friday morning on CBS News' The Early Show. "These have to be resolutions or a resolution that has a deadline to it and that has firm standards to it and that will be tough, very tough."

In a speech Thursday night to National Committee on American Foreign Policy, Powell lashed out at the Iraqi leader.

"Saddam Hussein has long made an unholy alliance with terrorists," Powell said. "What is not arguable is that he is in violation of international law."

Predicting the U.S. campaign against the Iraqi leader would prevail, Powell said, "I am confident we will be successful in making that case to the international community."

Raising the specter of war, President Bush told skeptical world leaders Thursday to confront the "grave and gathering danger" of Saddam's Iraq - or stand aside as the United States acts. Hesitant allies asked President Bush not to go it alone, while some members of Congress said the president still had not made the case for an attack.

In deciding to try to put together a new U.N. resolution on Iraq - there have been 16 since the Persian Gulf war of 1990-91 calling for weapons inspection and disarmament - President Bush has taken a step in the direction of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other world leaders who are opposed to unilateral action.

But a senior U.S. official responded negatively when asked if there was a chance Saddam would comply with U.N. demands this time. The official added there will be no negotiations with Iraq.

"It's not as if Saddam Hussein doesn't know what he is supposed to do. So we don't expect the process of coming to a resolution to take months," the official said.

Nor, the official said, will the United States wait months for Iraq to comply with any new U.N. demands.

President Bush, in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, said millions of lives are at risk because of Saddam's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs. He said it would be a "reckless gamble" to delay in coming to terms with the threat.

"If Iraq's regime defies us again, the world must move deliberately and decisively to hold Iraq to account," said Mr. Bush in his 15-minute address. "The just demands of peace and security will be met or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power."

Some delegates have indicated they hope an ultimatum by the United Nations would force Iraq to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors. The inspectors, responsible for accounting for Iraq's nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic weapons, were pulled out of Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing raid, and have not been allowed to return.

"It's clear for me that the United Nations has to act," said Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, whose country has a seat on the Security Council. "The question is which way to act. I hope for a peaceful outcome of this."

"We are facing a lot of very, very difficult challenges and choices, and I guess we will have to choose among a lot of bad options really," said Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen.

Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said, "President Bush has clearly decided to take the issue once again back to the Security Council. That, in our view, is an important decision."

Still, many world leaders counseled patience and more diplomacy, while members of Congress were skeptical of going to war with Iraq.

Addressing the General Assembly, Annan urged caution, that the United Nations was the place to confront threats to international peace and security.

Defiant, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Al-Douri denounced the Bush speech.

"He chooses to deceive the world and his own people by the longest series of fabrications that have ever been told by a leader of a nation," charged Al-Douri.

In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said, "I don't think that the case for pre-emptive attack has been made conclusively yet. That doesn't mean it can't be." Democrats like Daschle are struggling to balance their concerns of going to war against the political dangers of bucking a popular president.

Republican lawmakers praised Bush's speech and urged Democrats to yield quickly on a resolution authorizing action against Saddam - an act that would make Iraq an issue deep in the midterm election campaign.

"We must vote to show support to the president right now," said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott.

Both President Bush and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have referred to "resolutions" in the plural, suggesting that proposals by French President Jacques Chirac may prevail.

France wants to give Iraq three weeks to accept the weapons inspectors without conditions. A second resolution would follow to approve the use of force.

"The Security Council should then decide measures to be taken without excluding any option," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told a news conference in New York.

But Villepin did not push for the removal of Saddam from power. "The clear priority today is the struggle against proliferation and to get the inspectors back in," he said.

Straw compared the current discussions in the Security Council with the "staged approach" after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 that led to the Gulf War five months later.

The council immediately imposed stringent sanctions, and in November 1990 adopted a resolution authorizing the use of "all necessary measures" to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait if they did not leave by Jan. 15, 1991. The vote then was 12-2, with China casting an abstention.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/12/attack/main521836.shtml