December 29, 2002	Sunday	Shawwal 24, 1423

LONDON, Dec 28: An “all-out war” on Iraq that caused mass suffering could not be justified, Britain’s International Development Secretary Clare Short said on Saturday.

But she added that the authority of the United Nations had to be upheld and said the situation was “complex”.

“An all-out war that caused devastating suffering to the people of Iraq would be wrong,” said Short, who has in the past made clear her reservations about the course being steered by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour government.

Interviewed by the BBC, she backed British church leaders in their calls for war to be avoided, made during their Christmas addresses.

“That is one of the things that the bishops are saying, and I completely agree with them. But of course, like most things, it is also complex,” she said.

“I also agree with those that make the point that the authority of the U.N. in this matter most not be defied. Therefore we must not cause suffering to the people of Iraq.

“But we must enforce the authority of the U.N. and that is the tightrope we have got to walk.

“And we have got to try to keep the whole world together and the U.S. together behind the authority of the U.N. and that is where I think the UK should use its influence,” she said.

DISASTER FEARED: War with Iraq, with biological or chemical agents possibly unleashed, will be a human calamity, the UN refugee chief warned — exactly a month before a final arms inspectors’ report might trigger a conflict.

“Believe me, it will be a disaster from a humanitarian perspective,” Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said in a BBC interview.

He raised the spectre that bacteriological or chemical weapons — for evidence of which U.N. inspectors are currently scouring Iraq — could be used in a conflict.

He urged the international community to prevent war, and not to fight unless Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could not be disarmed if he still has such weapons, which Saddam denies.

“Only, only, when Saddam Hussein does not comply with both the inspections and the consequences of the inspections...then there can be reason for a military intervention,” said Lubbers.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and a U.N. mission toured the Modern Company for Brewery and other sites on Friday as the mission to scour Iraq for traces of atomic, biological or chemical weapons entered its second month.

Iraq said on Thursday the experts had found no evidence of banned weapons. The inspectors are now starting to interview scientists who worked on now abandoned weapons programmes.

The 100-plus inspectors — whose predecessors left the country in 1998 after Baghdad halted cooperation — are due to issue their next report on January 9 and a final one on January 27, with speculation growing this could spark war.

A U.N. Security Council resolution last month gave Iraq a last chance to come clean on its weapons programmes or face consequences, which is diplomatic speak for possible war.

America faced a grave war of words on a new front as North Korea accused it of rushing into an “extremely dangerous confrontation” over the communist state’s nuclear plans.—dpa/Reuters