Posted on 08/03/2002 5:12:09 PM PDT by Pokey78
President George W. Bush will announce within weeks that he intends to depose Iraq's ruler, Saddam Hussein, by force, setting the stage for a war in the Gulf this winter.
Amid signs of active preparations for a war within six months, senior officials on both sides of the Atlantic have said that war against Iraq is now inevitable.
'The expectation is that President Bush will make a final decision on the timing of a war over the course of August. That would be followed by British-led efforts to get a mandate for action at the UN, either under existing resolutions or a new UN resolution,' said one senior source.
The disclosure came as US Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed an offer by Iraq to talk to the chief weapons inspector of the United Nations. 'Inspection is not the issue, disarmament is, making sure that the Iraqis have no weapons of mass destruction,' said Powell during a visit to Manila, capital of the Philippines.
'We have seen the Iraqis try to fiddle with the inspection system before,' said Powell. 'You can tell that they are trying to get out of the clear requirement that they have. The goal is not inspections for inspection's sake.'
The escalation of US military efforts comes amid signs of the first serious split between the White House and Britain over the relentless march to war.
That split emerged yesterday after John Bolton, US Under Secretary for Arms Control, admitted that the aim in Washington was to topple Saddam regardless of whether or not he allowed UN inspectors back in to complete the disarmament process.
'Let there be no mistake - while we also insist on the reintroduction of the weapons inspectors, our policy at the same time insists on regime change in Baghdad and that policy will not be altered, whether inspectors go in or not,' Bolton told Radio 4's Today programme. He said he 'certainly hoped' Saddam would be deposed within the year.
His words set alarm bells ringing in London, since the legality of any attack on Iraq - already questioned by the Government's own lawyers - depends on claiming to be acting against infringements of the post-Gulf War disarmament pact rather than simply overthrowing a dictator. Foreign Office sources were quick to dissociate the Foreign Secretary from Bolton's comments.
'Jack Straw has always said that the aim of our policy would not be regime change,' said a Foreign Office source.
In a further indication of preparations for war on both sides of the Atlantic, Tony Blair is expected to begin a campaign of softening up public opinion for war in the autumn. Bruce George, chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee, said the Government 'will have to have started explaining' its case by then to reverse polls now showing strong opposition to war.
Bolton's comments came as new evidence emerged of US preparations for war, including the building up of strategic oil reserves in the US to insulate the economy against an expected hike in oil prices that would follow the opening of hostilities.
Discreet inquiries have also been made about the availability of the oil tankers that would be needed to transport aviation and other fuel to the Gulf for use by US forces.
In a further indication that America is readying itself for war, large numbers of US Army military trucks have undergone rapid servicing by the Oshkosh Truck Corporation and have been seen being delivered by rail back to their bases painted in tan desert camouflage.
Blair yesterday faced new demands from all sides to publish the now notorious dossier of information on Saddam's nuclear, biological and chemical armoury that he has been promising to unveil since spring.
'The British public deserves to be treated with respect. We must know what the evidence is, and the evidence has got to be compelling,' said Tony Lloyd, the ex-Foreign Office Minister.
The long delay in publication has prompted suspicions that the dossier, which relies heavily on satellite pictures, is embarrassingly thin.
'By delaying publication the Government has raised expectations. There would be a political price to pay if this much promised document did not amount to more than a collection of press cuttings,' said Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman.
The determination of Bush and his closest officials to go ahead with a war has also come amid growing evidence of splits within his own administration.
Senior officials, however, anticipate that Bush will bring an end to the debate by ordering the Pentagon to prepare for war. Most in the administration expect a fairly swift victory.
'I'm absolutely convinced the President will settle on a war plan that brings about regime change,' a senior Republican foreign policy specialist told the Washington Post last week.
Would this be the sneak attack that has been trumpeted in the New York Times for months now?
Remember when the government used to be able to stay out of our private lives while keeping its own military operations a secret?
Just wait, Pee Wee. The Iraqi people will be throwing flower petals in front of the tank treads as US and British forces march on Saddam's palaces.
They're sick of that animal.
I find it deeply amusing that the Guardian's readers are so stupid they have to have this spelled out for them.
God forgive you for hoping that on another parent.
Actually, max61's not a disruptor. He's been around a couple of years, and slinks onto FR, usually on weekends when he can't get a date. He hates all things non-libertarian.
Our troops are already spread throughout the world.
President Bush was not interested in "nation-building" that Bill Clinton was so fond of. We are in the business only because of terrorism that affect American lives.
And just why are these "crazy radical muslim terrorists" striving to end our way of life?. Could it be that we've been bombing Iraq for 12 years?. Could it be our supporting Isreali actions against the Palestinians?. Could it be that we've stuck our nose in places where it doesn't belong?.
Heh, you can be really funny. Well, maybe it was a mistake to support Israel directly from the beginning.
But it's too late. The Arabs hate Israel and America, so we got to kill them. End of the story. Besides Israel is our dependent ally, remember in 1981 when they bombed the reactor in Iraq? If it was not for that, Persian Gulf War would had been impossible.
Saddam is using the money to build presidental palaces and on his army. So please don't give me the bull about how we are starving Iraqi children.
There's no doubt that Americans made some mistakes with our foreign policy in the past. But all we can do right now is to correct our mistakes and get rid of crazy dictators such as Saddam so the rest of the Arab World will get the message before Israel or USA nukes them.
Good point, and one which many are completely unable to comprehend.
I don't know. They might've stumbled across one pertinent detail with that mention of OshKosh doing up the military's trucks. I went to the Oshkosh site and they do indeed do this sort of thing. Just click on the menu left- "Defense" and then "Support".
When I was still in the service, these sorts of items fell into the "carwash report" category. A carwash report is something the Military Intelligence guys call a civilian who just washes his car all day outside a military post and sort of innocuously counts vehicles going in and out. He's gathering good intel for the bad guys even though his activities seem innocent enough. Skilled military intelligence people can take enough of this sort of info- like the Oshkosh detail- and put together a pretty good picture of what's going on and what's about to happen.
It looks like to me, this news source has stumbled across this little bit of info and has built a story around it. In and of itself, it's nothing. But the intel guy tags it and puts it up on the situation board and along with the thousands of other little details the media finds out for him he's getting a pretty good picture of when we might invade his homeland. I'm trying to keep my own situation board of this sort of thing and I found the Oshkosh detail very intriguing.
I've been enduring a neighbor's barking dog all day, it was hard to likewise endure max61's barking.
Cheers to ya, sinkspur.
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