US Sends Fresh Warning, Annan Sees no Imminent War

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, January 15, 2003

US Sends Fresh Warning, Annan Sees no Imminent War

The United States and Britain Tuesday again warned that Iraq will inevitably face a war if it fails to meet their demands. However, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he sees no war at this stage. Germany and France reiterated their opposition to military campaign against Iraq.

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Bush Says Time Running out

United States President George W. Bush Tuesday sent a fresh warning to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, saying "time is running out" for Baghdad to come clean over any weapons of mass destruction.

"So far I haven't seen any evidence that he (President Saddam) is disarming. Time is running out on Saddam Hussein. He must disarm," said Bush when he met visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski at the White House.

"I'm sick and tired of games and deception. And that's my view of timetables," he said in reaction to a question whether Washington has a timetable in mind to end its standoff with Baghdad.

On Monday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the United States had not set a "timetable" for the end of UN weapons inspections in Iraq despite its increasing military buildup in the Gulf region.

Echoing Bush's tough wording, Britain, the closest ally of the US, said on Tuesday that war on Iraq might not need a new UN resolution, or even UN backing.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told BBC radio that his country reserves the right to go to war with Iraq if Saddam was found to have defied the existing UN resolution on disarmament.

He said Britain's preference "is that we have a second Security Council resolution... which we want... We've had to reserve our rights if we can't achieve that."

Britain's position has not changed since Nov. 25, when the British Parliament backed a motion that reserved the right to deal with the Iraqi issue, without a second UN resolution, if military action was required, Straw added.

This contradicts an earlier statement of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He said on Monday he would walk the "UN Route" in tackling Iraq, noting that he would not take Britain into a US-led military strike against Baghdad without further UN approval.

France, Germany Cool on War

As the US and Britain issued warnings, France and Germany, Washington's two major European allies, took a cool attitude. In Paris, Both French President Jacques Chirac and visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said they shared same stance over Iraq, upholding the crisis should be resolved politically, not by military means.

At a joint press conference following their meeting, Chirac said: "We have witnessed that our approach and our vision were identical and of the same nature."

For his part, Schroeder said Germany has "the most firm hope and the will to have the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 applied by political pressures without military intervention."

"Germany will not participate in military intervention in any case," Schroeder said.

Germany would continue to support UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix who recently said a few more months were needed to complete his mission in Iraq, he added.

"It is the role of our diplomacy to see to it that the time needed is given to him (Blix)," said Schroeder.

The German leader also agreed that a new resolution by the UN Security Council is indispensable if military action is to be launched, echoing France's stance reaffirmed earlier Tuesday.

"A new UN resolution is the best way for every one to explain his position, the best way to debate. It is important that this debate takes place," said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who attended the Chirac-Schroeder meeting together with his German counterpart Joschka Fischer.

"At present, the military action is not of actuality. It is not time for it now," he said.

"All depends on the principle of cooperation, because the key is to know whether we can obtain more (from Iraq) or we are at a deadlock." The French foreign minister said. "Baghdad must present to the international community all the elements allowing (the international community) to judge its disarmament."

When asked whether France will veto an eventual resolution on the use of force, de Villepin said: "France will stick to its own principles."

Earlier on Tuesday, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told the National Assembly that France remains free in its judgments and will never submit to any pressure.

Annan Says on War at this Stage

Despite the fresh warnings from Washington and London, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday it was too early to consider a war on Iraq yet, but warning that Baghdad could face military action if it defied UN mandates.

"I don't think, from where I stand, we are at that stage yet. I don't think we are there yet, so really I don't want to talk about war," the UN chief said in the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Annan said UN arms inspectors still had many jobs to do, adding hat arms experts were just "getting up to full speed."

He also noted that he was extremely worried about the possible impact on the Iraqi population of a war.

Meanwhile, UN weapons inspectors Tuesday searched 10 suspected sites in their daily hunting for banned weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

A team of biological experts from the United Nations Monitoring,Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) inspected the Al-Rabia Center for Agricultural Research in Baghdad. Another biological team searched the Technical Military Depot for the Air Force at Taji, north of the capital. Other UNMOVIC missile experts went to the Al-Mutaseem site, some 90 km south of Baghdad, and Al-Zafaraniya on the outskirts of the capital.

The experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the Fukar Mechanical Plant, the Sumood Factory, Nassr State Establishment and the Al-Qa-Qaa Stores, all of which are located on the suburbs of Baghdad.

Speaking to the BBC in London on Monday, the UN chief inspector Hans Blix reiterated his teams in Iraq had uncovered weapons-related smuggling.

"We have found several cases where it is clear that Iraq has imported weapons-related material in violation of the prohibitions of the Security Council," he said. He added, however, that the inspectors still needed to determine whether these discoveries or items were related to weapons of mass destruction.

He also said his inspection teams were widening their search net for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq with intelligence information from the US and Britain.

Blix told the UN Security Council last week that Iraq was illegally importing a relatively large number of missile engines and raw materials for the production of solid missile fuel.

Under UN Security Council resolution 1441, the UN weapons experts resumed their search for prohibited weapons of mass destruction in Iraq on Nov. 27, last year.

So far, the inspectors have searched more than 300 suspected sites in Iraq, and are expected to submit their first report on Iraq's weapons programs to the Security Council on Jan. 27. France and Germany said here Tuesday that the two countries shared the same anti-war approach to the Iraqi crisis.

Iraq: UN Inspector will Finde Nothing

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri has said that UN inspectors will find nothing in Iraq, challenging anyone who claims that Baghdad is pursuing weapons of mass destruction programs to provide evidence.

According to the official Iraqi News Agency, Sabri made the remarks in an interview with the Iraqi satellite TV late Monday. "The inspectors have found nothing. And if they continue to search every corner of Iraq, they will find nothing because there is nothing for them to find."

He stressed that "neither the Americans nor their agents and lackeys here or there" can provide evidence that Iraq has banned weapons.

Reacting to Britain's last warning that the US and Britain will launch a war on Iraq if it fails to meet the UN resolution, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said on Tuesday his country has already come clean about arms programs, adding that President Saddam would fight to the bitter end.

"Saddam Hussein is a courageous leader and will stay in Iraq for a very long time and fight until the last Iraqi bullet," he said.

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