Posted on 09/16/2002 7:31:46 AM PDT by robowombat
New York Times September 16, 2002 Pg. 1
Saudis Indicating U.S. Can Use Bases If U.N. Backs War
By Todd S. Purdum
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — The Saudi foreign minister indicated this weekend that his country would let the United States use its military bases in a United Nations-backed attack on Iraq, a sign that Arab nations may be dropping their resistance to an attack on Saddam Hussein.
The Saudi minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said that if there was a Security Council resolution backing military action, all United Nations members would have to honor it. In a CNN interview from New York, first broadcast late Saturday, the prince was asked if the Saudis would make bases available to the Americans, and answered that if the United Nations warranted action, "everybody is obliged to follow through."
Prince Saud said he remained opposed in principle to the use of military force or a unilateral attack by the United States, but his remarks seemed to indicate an important shift in Saudi Arabia's posture.
Over the weekend, there were several other signs of emerging international consensus that Iraq must take steps to bring itself in line with a decade of United Nations resolutions — on disarmament, an accounting of Persian Gulf war prisoners, protection of its minorities and the like — or face consequences.
The Lebanese foreign minister, Mahmud Hammud, speaking on behalf of Arab foreign ministers who met with the Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations on Saturday, said, "We want Iraq to implement the Security Council resolutions, which will end the current crisis."
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt also announced plans to tour the Middle East to gather support for persuading Iraq to let weapons inspectors back in.
At the same time, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other senior American officials kept up their drumbeat on Iraq. He said any Security Council resolution would have to set a deadline for compliance by Mr. Hussein, "and not a long deadline, but a deadline that requires him to say he will act." Speaking today on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," he added, "We're talking a short time, a matter of weeks."
"This is the key part," Secretary Powell said, "that the U.N. will then say, `We're going to take action if he fails to take action.' That's what we're looking for."
For months, Saudi Arabia, a vital ally in the gulf war in 1991, had said it would deny use of its territory for an American campaign against Iraq this time. But in an interview with the London-based Arabic language newspaper Al Hayat, Prince Saud said, "Since Iraq says it does not possess weapons of mass destruction and has no plans to produce any, why doesn't it agree to the return of inspectors to settle the issue which will go to the Security Council?"
Senior Bush administration officials reacted to Prince Saud's comments today with both optimism and some caution.
"We have seen since the president's speech a rallying of support for his approach, and a coalescence around the idea that the U.N. must act, and it must act against more than a decade of Iraq's flouting of the will of the international community," one official said, referring to President Bush's address at the United Nations on Thursday.
But another added: "Frankly, we haven't seen the comments in any detail yet. It's for the Saudis to explain, and we can't go into it too much just yet."
Agreement on a Security Council resolution or resolutions that might allow the use of military force — either jointly or by individual member nations — is far from certain, but that is the Bush administration's clear goal. Since Mr. Bush's speech on Thursday, there has been a noticeable shift in Arab sentiment, with Arab nations edging back toward the American posture of putting the onus on President Hussein.
Elaborating on the kind of possible language the administration is seeking, Secretary Powell suggested that it should be broad enough to encompass military action, citing phrases like "use necessary means," or "member states should feel free." But, he acknowledged, "that will be the difficult element in any such resolution."
Both he and Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, said they were open to several possible approaches, including more than one resolution, and would be resuming detailed discussions with member nations when Secretary Powell returns to New York for more United Nations meetings on Monday, with the hope of beginning drafting by week's end.
France, a permanent member of the Security Council, has floated the idea of a two-step process, with a first resolution finding Iraq in violation of past United Nations demands and requiring compliance, followed by a second on possible military action if Iraq maintains its defiance.
But administration officials have indicated deep wariness of that idea, and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III said in an opinion article published in The Washington Post today, "What is absolutely not acceptable is the idea of two resolutions — one demanding action by Iraq, the second, to come later (maybe), authorizing enforcement."
That, Mr. Baker said, "would give Saddam Hussein two bites at the apple, first by stonewalling on compliance and then by fighting the enforcement resolution." He noted that in 1990, the Soviet Union had sought such a course to respond to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, but that the United States had refused.
Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri al-Hadithi, again insisted that any new inspections be tied to the lifting of decade-old United Nations sanctions. "Iraq's sovereignty must be respected, and the inspections must result in the easing of sanctions against Iraq and the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, particularly in Israel," he told German television.
But Ms. Rice, speaking on the ABC News program "This Week," insisted: "The Iraqi regime can have no say in what is required of it. We've been down that road before. It's done nothing but weaken the resolutions that the Security Council had passed."
Ms. Rice also insisted that the United States would be capable of pursuing its campaign against terrorism even if it was forced to wage war on Iraq.
"We fully believe that the United States is capable of conducting the war on terrorism and dealing with other threats," she said. "We don't believe there are limits on what we can do in the war on terrorism and dealing with a major threat of weapons of mass destruction."
But the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, said on "Fox News Sunday" that Mr. Hussein is "not one of the primary threats to the United States."
Citing the arrest of five men who allegedly belonged to a terror cell near Buffalo, Mr. Graham said, "What worries me is that I think the war on terrorism has bogged down."
"Why were those five people arrested in Buffalo?" he asked. "Primarily because we had evidence that they had been at an Al Qaeda training camp in 2001. Those camps, in my judgment, are the real threat to the United States security, and that's what I think our priority ought to be, in terms of protecting the people America, is taking them out."
Administration officials said they were eager to gain custody of a senior Al Qaeda suspect, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was captured in Pakistan.
"We certainly want custody of him," Ms. Rice said in a separate appearance on "Fox News Sunday," adding, "We certainly want to be able to find out what he knows."
Secretary Powell, speaking on CNN's "Late Edition," said of Mr. bin al-Shibh: "I think he's a pretty big fish. I mean, this is perhaps within the circle of those were responsible for 9/11."
Saudi Arabia
should be next.
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