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[casi] FW: US will attack without UN, Daily Telegraph



Dear All, Every time I get hopeful, along comes an e-mail like this one
from Laurie Mylroie....  Suzy

-----Original Message-----
From: Laurie Mylroie [mailto:sam11@erols.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 8:27 PM
To: Laurie Mylroie
Subject: US will attack without UN, Daily Telegraph


Daily Telegraph
US will attack Iraq 'without UN backing'
By Toby Harnden
January 10, 2003

America will not delay a war with Iraq until the autumn and is prepared
to
launch military action against Saddam Hussein without further United
Nations
authorisation, a senior Bush administration adviser said yesterday.

Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board and a
hawk
whose views carry considerable weight, rejected suggestions from British
ministers and senior Foreign Office officials that plans for an early
war
should be put on hold.

Mr Perle, who is close to Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary,
said he
did not expect the UN Security Council to reach agreement on the use of
force but had little doubt that George W Bush, the US president, would
press
ahead regardless and lead a coalition to victory.

"I'm assuming that we will not get a consensus on the Security Council
but
it may be possible to get it," he said. "It would be a great mistake to
become dependent on it and take the view that we can't act separately.

"That would be an abrogation of the president's responsibility."

Mr Perle stressed that as an outside adviser he could not speak for the
Bush
administration. But with Mr Rumsfeld and his ally Vice-President Dick
Cheney, now the driving force behind US foreign policy, his
pronouncements
have taken on increasing importance.

Mr Perle said inspectors would not find actual weapons in the face of
Iraqi
concealment. "If that's the test, we're never going to find a smoking
gun,"
said Mr Perle.

He criticised Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, for his
handling of
the inspections. He said inspectors had mainly visited previously known
sites.

"They are the last place you would expect Saddam to put something," Mr
Perle
said. "You would have to be a complete idiot to do that. The inspectors
returning to known sites makes Blix look foolish."

The Swede "has a history from when he was head of the International
Atomic
Energy Agency and Saddam built a nuclear capability right under his
nose",
he added.

Mr Perle suggested that American patience with the UN inspections
process
was limited and closely linked to the military timetable that makes it
very
difficult to fight a war after March because of the searing heat.

He said: "If there's no change in Saddam's attitude I think there'll be
a
reluctance to continue this without a clear indication that our patience
will be rewarded by a UN Security Council consensus.

"A consensus would be a useful thing and I think we'd be willing to wait
a
little longer to get it but not a long time."

Mr Perle said America had been right to go to the UN to seek Resolution
1441, passed unanimously in November, because it "produced a consensus
in
support of significant demands" but the UN had only a limited role in
dealing with Saddam.

"The question now of course is whether the UN having done that [passed
1441]
will insist that its demands be met or revert to its previous posture
which
was to pass resolutions but not take the actions necessary to ensure
compliance with them."

He expressed doubt that Tony Blair had asked or would ask Mr Bush to
delay
war until the autumn and accused those who sought such a delay of being
opposed to ousting Saddam in any event.

Although Mr Perle did not mention them, a number of US State Department
diplomats are implacably opposed to war.

They were encouraged by the views of the ministers and the Foreign
Office,
reported in The Telegraph yesterday, as well as recent comments by Jack
Straw, the Foreign Secretary, that the chances of war were "60:40
against".

Mr Perle said: "There are nations on the UN Security Council against
taking
military action so they will try to slow any movement towards military
action."

America and its allies, he insisted, already had the legal and moral
justification for war. "We might be acting without a resolution from the
UN
authorising it but I think the administration can make a strong case
that
Saddam's defiance of a variety of resolutions passed previously could be
understood to justify military action."






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