The government said yesterday that it would monitor the US' military build-up near Iraq following a report given by the UN's chief weapons inspector, as the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) brought the campaign for the overthrow and replacement of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to Taiwan.
"As to whether the US will strike Iraq, we'll observe very closely related developments over the next few days," Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新) said yesterday.
The ministry has set up a 24-hour task force over the Lunar New Year holidays to handle any effects domestically of a war in Iraq, sources said.
"We don't want to see the outbreak of a war. But if it does take place, we hope it'll end as soon as possible," Chien said.
Chien said the nation sided with the US and other like-minded countries, including Japan and the UK, in wanting to safeguard what he termed a "stable" world.
But Chien said that a report on investigations into Iraq's weapons programs, delivered by chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix on Monday, would need clarification.
The AIT yesterday invited members of the media to watch a video of a speech given by US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to the Council on Foreign Relations on Jan. 23 about Saddam's weapons programs.
"Baghdad must disarm, peacefully if at all possible, but by force if necessary," Wolfowitz said during his address to the council. "And time is running out."
AIT spokesperson Judith Mudd-Krijgelmans yesterday reiterated the comments of US Secretary of State Colin Powell after Blix's report on Monday.
She said the US would continue "to work with our friends and allies. But we continue to reserve the sovereign right to take military action alone or in a coalition of the willing."
Mudd-Krijgelmans declined to comment on Chien's assertion that Taiwan would be willing to offer "humanitarian aid" to the Iraqi people in the aftermath of any war.
"I am not prepared to go into that right now," she said, while reiterating Washington's appreciation of Taipei's involvement in reconstruction work in Afghanistan.
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