WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Senior Bush administration officials on Sunday continued efforts to convince the American people that a pre-emptive strike against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would be in the best interest of the international community.
Their arguments came four days before President George W. Bush is to speak on the issue before the U.N. General Assembly that the Iraqi leader was attempting to develop nuclear weapons and other instruments of mass destruction.
"Recent developments have to do with our now being able to conclude, based on intelligence which is becoming available, that he has indeed stepped up his capacity to produce and deliver biological weapons, that he has reconstituted his nuclear program to develop a nuclear weapons, that there are efforts inside Iraq to expand his capability," said Vice President Dick Cheney on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Bush and his key advisers have been trying to convince U.S. allies and members of Congress that Saddam poses a threat to international security. It has been 11 years since the end of the Gulf War when Iraq agreed to allow U.N. inspections to ensure that it was not developing chemical, nuclear or biological weaponry. But it has not allowed those inspections to take place.
Gaining consensus both from lawmakers and the American people for a strike against Iraq has been anything but easy. Britain and Israel are the only countries that have pledged support if the United States should attack Iraq. It is speculated that Saddam would retaliate against nearby Israel -- as it did during the Gulf War -- if the United States strikes Iraq.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, appearing on Fox News, dismissed criticism that disagreements existed between key administration officials on how to handle Saddam. He said the president welcomed healthy debate but that sound legal authority existed for his ordering the strike.
In a New York Times poll released Sunday, two-thirds of those asked if the United States should wait until it has more support from this allies before taking military action against Iraq. One quarter of respondents said Iraq posed a grave threat to the United States but 64 percent said they felt the Bush administration had not clearly outlined why it believes Iraq is an international menace, the Times reported.
On Saturday Bush had a 3-hour meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David, the Maryland presidential retreat. The two leaders agreed that evidence existed for a change in Iraq's leadership.
"The point that I would emphasize to you is that the threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability, that threat is real. We only need to look at the report from the International Atomic Agency this morning showing what has been going on at the former nuclear weapons sites to realize that," said Blair during an impromptu meeting Saturday with reporters.
Even as Blair and Bush met, a poll released in Britain indicated that Blair faces substantial public opposition at home to British involvement in any U.S. strike against Iraq that doesn't have U.N. approval. A poll conducted exclusively for London's Independent newspaper found that 60 percent of those surveyed (and almost two-thirds of Labor Party voters) said Britain shouldn't join any unilateral U.S. strike against Iraq.
Some critics have said Bush is using the situation in Iraq as a diversion from the administration's failure to find Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden as the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington approaches. Bin Laden has been U.S. officials' prime suspect in the search for a mastermind behind last September's attacks in which four jetliners were hijacked and crashed into buildings, killing more than 3,000 people.
Cheney denied the diversion charges, saying the threat from Saddam is real and that the administration has had concerns about his activities for a long time.
The vice president, however, stopped short of implicating Iraq in the Sept. 11 attacks. He said that in the past year some evidence that "come to light" that Muhammad Atta, allegedly one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence official and that a "pattern of relationships" going back many years existed between Iraq and al Qaida
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Cheney said the fact that sanctions against Iraq are breaking down
Moncler Jura, the willingness of nations to trade with Saddam and the belief of officials that the United States may be the target of an attack launched by Saddam are compelling arguments for a regime change. He added that Iraq has some 10 percent of the world's oil reserves that generates revenue from illicit oil sales to fund weapons' programs.
Saddam possesses a well-established scientific team and at least two weapons designs discovered by inspectors after the Gulf War. He is also trying
Ugg Metallic Classic Short 5842, through illicit procurement network to acquire materials needed to enrich uranium, a key component in nuclear weapons. The United States intercepted a shipment of aluminum tubes bound for Iraq needed to build a centrifuge needed to transform uranium into a high-grade material needed to build a bomb, Cheney said.
"What we found out after the Gulf War, once we got in there, once we got the inspection regime going, was that he had been much farther along than we anticipated, and that he in fact he might have been within six months to a year of actually building a nuclear weapon," Cheney said.
Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who has declared repeatedly that Iraq does not possess weapons of mass destruction, was invited to speak to the Iraq's National Assembly, telling them Sunday the United States may be on the verge of a "historic mistake."
"The world has consistently underestimated how close (Saddam) is to acquiring weapons" of mass destruction, a senior administration official told reporters late Saturday. "This is part of the record of Saddam Hussein's continued efforts, relentless efforts to acquire (weapons of mass destruction)," he said.
National security advisor Condoleezza Rice told CNN that inaction could be dangerous.
"We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon. And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought, maybe six months from a crude nuclear device. The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't what the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," Rice said.
