The White House resisted calls by other countries Wednesday that it secure the explicit blessing of the United Nations Security Council before going to war against Iraq.
The US administration suggested it could decide in favor of launching military action on Baghdad even if UN arms inspectors do not turn up concrete new evidence against Saddam Hussein, according to the New York Times.
A day after President George W. Bush warned that "time is running out" on Saddam, a top administration official said the timetable for a decision regarding war would be "driven by events." Those include a report to be submitted by the UN weapons inspectors later this month and evidence that Hussein is truly complying with the UN demand that he give up any weapons of mass destruction.
In another indication of the increasing frustration with what Washington views as stalling and evasion by Iraq, the senior official added that Saddam was intimidating his scientists into refusing to travel outside of Iraq for interviews regarding Baghdad's weapons programs.
In its Thursday edition, the Times said that clearly intent on not permitting the weapons inspections to continue for months without a decision on confronting Saddam, the administration said it would try to head off pressure from several nations to work according to a timetable established under a 1999 United Nations resolution that would require the inspectors to report again in late March.
Meanwhile, senior Iraqi official and President Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid has postponed a visit to Egypt to discuss the Iraqi crisis, according to a source at the Egyptian presidency Wednesday, cited by AFP.
The source provided no new date for the visit of Majid, who is a member of the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council, and did not say why he has postponed his trip, planned initially for later this week.
The visit was announced earlier this week by Cairo and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak confirmed he would meet the envoy Saturday and receive from him a message from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. (Albawaba.com)
(Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
