The chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix said yesterday Iraq appeared to be making fresh efforts to cooperate with UN teams hunting banned weapons, as Washington said the "momentum is building" for war with Iraq.
Iraq said UN inspectors on Thursday held their first private interview with an Iraqi scientist linked to previous banned weapons programs, a key UN demand.
Blix welcomed the move but said he wanted to see "a lot more" during his weekend visit to Iraq.
"We want to see disarmament of Iraq through the inspection process," he said in a speech to new weapons inspectors being sent to Iraq. "It requires active cooperation from Iraq, not on process but on substance."
Weapons inspectors have demanded that experts be interviewed without other Iraqis present, to protect informers from reprisal. To date, Iraq has refused to allow U2 spyplanes to overfly its territory to monitor suspected sites, which US Secretary of State Colin Powell said this week were being doctored by the Iraqis to hide banned weapons programs.
Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN's atomic watchdog agency, the IAEA, travel to Baghdad this weekend for talks with Iraqi leaders seen by many as President Saddam Hussein's last chance to avert war.
They are to report to the UN Security Council on Feb. 14. A critical report could increase pressure for a new UN resolution to authorize war.
US President George W. Bush said on Thursday he would support a new UN resolution authorizing war against Iraq, saying "the game is over" for Saddam and challenging the Security Council to stand up to Iraq's defiance.
"Having made its demands, the Security Council must not back down, when those demands are defied and mocked by a dictator," Bush said.
Iraq denies it has any weapons of mass destruction and on Thursday poured scorn on US charges it was cheating inspectors or had links with al-Qaeda, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on US cities.
Iraqi officials responded angrily to Powell, who on Wednesday presented the Security Council with spy satellite photos, tapes of bugged conversations and other material he said was damning evidence of Iraq's determination to hide weapons.
Saddam adviser Amir al-Saadi said the allegations were "outrageous and not convincing," and would be rebutted line by line in a detailed letter to the Security Council.
Suggestions by some analysts that opposition in Paris to a US-led attack was weakening were countered by French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie yesterday.
"For us, today, we are in the inspection phase. We are not in a phase of preparing for war," she told Radio France Internationale.
Washington's failure to convince its European allies was laid bare on Thursday when NATO again pushed back a decision on measures to boost the defenses of member Turkey in the event of war with its neighbor Iraq.
The US has also so far failed to convince another veto-holding Security Council member, Russia, to back the use of force against Iraq. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov yesterday rejected calls for a second UN resolution for now.
"If there was a need for an additional resolution to ensure that the [UN arms] inspectors' work in Iraq continued, we would be ready to consider this option," Ivanov told reporters in Moscow. "But today there are no grounds to talk about a resolution which would authorize the use of force against Iraq."
Britain's UN ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said, nevertheless, he believed it was "very likely" there would be a draft resolution in the second half of February which would secure a majority of the council's 15 members.
Nearly all Council members agree Iraq has fallen far short of compliance, but fewer say it is a big enough threat to warrant war.
The US and Britain reserve the right to attack Iraq without a another resolution, which could be blocked by one of the other three powers with a veto -- France, Russia and China.
"I don't think that is what will happen," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a televised interview on Thursday night. "I don't think we will get to the position of vetoes."
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2