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WASHINGTON, Jan 17: US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Friday that President George Bush was ready to assume alone or with like-minded nations the responsibility of a war against Iraq.
In an interview, Powell said Bush had not yet taken a decision on launching a war and wanted to resolve the problem peacefully.
But he said that if the international community was not ready to act, the president thought the United States should assume responsibility alone or with like-minded nations.
The interview, to appear in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s Saturday edition, was given to a group of reporters from countries who have just joined the UN Security Council.
Powell also said it could make sense for the UN Security Council to adopt a second resolution on Iraq before any military action was launched, but that one way or another Baghdad had to be disarmed.
The secretary said Iraq’s lack of cooperation with the United Nations weapons inspectors would be proven by the end of the month.
Powell said that Iraq had failed to cooperate with weapons inspectors by not giving them open access to its arsenals and failing to provide adequate documentation about its arms programme.
UN arms inspection team head Hans Blix is due to make a key report to the Security Council on Jan 27 on the first two months of weapons inspections in Iraq.
Powell said the US and all other members of the council should ask themselves on that day whether Baghdad is cooperating with the inspections in the way that UN resolution 1441 requires.
He said the UN should not tolerate Saddam continually flouting its will. Earlier on Friday, Bush’s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said it was “becoming increasingly clear” that Saddam had not disarmed.
He said that 11 empty chemical warheads found on Thursday did not appear on the list of weapons Iraq had submitted to the United Nations.
Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Friday he was seeking “more explanations” from Baghdad about the empty warheads found in an arms depot.
He said the munitions would be destroyed after undergoing tests, and added that he was not yet sure whether they had featured in Iraq’s weapons declaration to the UN last month.
The Iraqi statement was filed as part of UN resolution 1441 which gave Iraq one month to make a complete disclosure of its weapons of mass destruction — or face “serious consequences”.
REGIME CHANGE: The US goal in Iraq is disarmament and the removal of its president, Saddam Hussein, a White House spokesman said on Friday.
“Our policy is regime change, and the president said war is our last resort,” Ari Fleischer told reporters.
“The president has always said that he would like this to be resolved peacefully and that his first preference was for Saddam Hussein to disarm.”
“The president has as well been unequivocal about the fact that if Saddam doesn’t disarm,” US forces will disarm him, the spokesman said.
Fleischer offered no comment on reports that Iraqi generals were plotting a coup d’etat against Saddam.
“I can’t speak specifically about these reports,” he said.
Nor would he say whether Washington was ready to allow amnesty for Saddam if he agreed to step down.
“I’ve heard no conversation about it,” Fleischer said.—AFP/Reuters
