WASHINGTON,
December 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - As the United States
moves closer to a war on 12-year-sanction-hit Iraq, the commander of
U.S. forces in the Gulf arrived Saturday, December 7, in Qatar for a
high-profile military exercise, while President George W. Bush warned
that the declaration (on alleged weapons programs) must hold up to
U.S. scrutiny if Baghdad is to avoid military attack.
In
his weekly radio address Saturday, the day that Iraq was to disclose a
list of weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations, Bush said,
"We will judge the declaration's honesty and completeness only
after we have thoroughly examined it, and that will take some
time".
Bush
threatened that what he described as Iraq's attempts to appear to be
cooperating with weapons inspectors might not be enough to avoid war.
"The
declaration must be credible and accurate and complete, or the Iraqi
dictator will have demonstrated to the world once again that he has
chosen not to change his behavior," he said, quoted by Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
"Disarming
that regime is a central commitment of the war on terror," Bush
said in the radio speech.
"We
must, and we will, prevent terrorist groups and outlaw regimes from
threatening the American people with catastrophic harm," he said.
The
Iraqi declaration must be at United Nations headquarters in New York
by a Sunday, December 8, deadline, in compliance with United Nations
Security Council Resolution 1441 which obliges Iraq to make a
"currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all
aspects" of its alleged weapons programs.
However,
Iraq said that the document, expected to run into thousands of pages,
would be submitted a day earlier.
Baghdad
has repeatedly said that it does not have stockpiles of the banned
biological and chemical weapons - an assertion that the White House
has insisted is not credible.
"Now
Saddam Hussein will fully disarm himself of weapons of mass
destruction, and if he does not, America will lead a coalition to
disarm him," Bush threatened in the radio address.
At
the same time, Washington gave itself wiggle room to launch a strike
on Iraq even if no weapons are found in Iraq, with Bush saying
Saturday that the decision to attack does not entirely depend upon
whether the prohibited weapons are detected, said AFP.
"It
is not enough for Iraq to merely open doors for inspectors ... Any act
of delay or defiance will prove that Saddam Hussein has not adopted
the path of compliance, and has rejected the path of peace," the
U.S. President said.
Franks
was to lead a week-long command exercise called "Internal
Look" that kicks off Monday, December 9, involving some 1,000
U.S. and British personnel, said Major Bill Harrison, a Central
Command (CENTCOM) spokesman, AFP reported.
Washington
steers away from any direct link between the war games and U.S.
threats of war on Baghdad. Military officials confirm only grudgingly
the scenarios they will be playing out include Iraq.
They
are also cagey about whether some or all of the 600-700 U.S. staff
deployed in Doha, including top war planners, will stay on after
putting their computers and communications facilities through their
paces.
"We
have never said anything other than that we fully intend to redeploy
after the exercise. There are many things that could change
that," said Lieutenant Colonel John Robinson, another CENTCOM
spokesman.
However,
the "Internal Look" exercise is clearly part of coordinated
U.S. attempts to launch war on Iraq.
U.S.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was due to visit Qatar after a tour
of the Horn of Africa next week, the U.S. Embassy said. The U.S. army
has also begun to grant media access to ongoing live-fire exercises
south of the Iraqi border in Kuwait.
The
Qatar exercise is the latest in the "Internal Look" series,
following war games held in 1996 and 2000. A similar one conducted in
1990 produced a blueprint for the U.S.-led war on Iraq in 1991.
With
Saudi Arabia balking at a repeat of its 1991 role as a base for
U.S.-led forces, the Americans have set up a state-of-the-art command
center at Qatar's sprawling As-Saliyah army base, 15 kilometers (10
miles) from Doha.
U.S.
officials said the deployable complex of several modular buildings
housing computers and communications equipment would remain after the
exercise ends, giving Franks the option to move forward as he sees
fit.
The
United States has reportedly spent more than 100 million dollars to
build more than 20 climate-controlled warehouses at As-Saliyah to
store hundreds of tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and other hardware.
No
combat troops will be involved in the exercise that will link Franks
with commanders of the Navy, Army and Marine Corps units in the region
as well as CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Overall, several
thousand U.S. personnel will be involved, officials said.
 |
|
The
USS Harry S. Truman, with its 8,000 sailors and 12 vessel battle
group, heads for the Mediterranean Sea area
|
Harrison
said 300 British personnel had been deployed in Qatar for the war
games. A British embassy spokesman said 400 troops had arrived and
another 400 would take part from bases abroad.
"It
will be a very comprehensive worldwide exercise," a senior
CENTCOM official in Tampa said this week. The Americans declined to
say if other nations were involved.
The
U.S. military says that its advanced communications make it possible
to run a war from Tampa. But the Qatar base would allow Franks to get
closer to the action and stay in the same time zone.
Meanwhile,
in the Iraqi capital, disarmament experts inspected Saturday suspected
nuclear and biological weapons sites just hours before Iraq was due to
hand over a crucial inventory of weapons programs.
A
team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) entered the
sprawling Al-Tuwaitha complex, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of
Baghdad, reported AFP.
The
site, which includes some 100 buildings, was already visited for five
hours by the IAEA on December 4.
Al-Tuwaitha,
which today houses pharmaceutical laboratories, saw the launch of
Iraq's nuclear research program that was dismantled between 1991 and
1998 by the previous inspections commission UNSCOM. Israeli warplanes
destroyed a nuclear reactor being built at the site in 1981.
Inspectors
from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
(UNMOVIC) drove to Iskanderiyah, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the
capital and went into the Al-Quds (Jerusalem factory, which is run by
the Industry Ministry).
After
taking time off Thursday and Friday during a Muslim holiday, a convoy
of white U.N. vehicles carrying inspection teams rolled out of their
Baghdad headquarters shortly before 8:30 am (05:30 GMT).
At
the same time, the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.N., Mohammed al-Douri,
said the Iraqi document, which is expected to number at least 10,000
pages would contain no new information, according to BBC News Online.
However,
the U.S. pressed Friday the U.N. team in Iraq to identify Iraqi
scientists prepared to reveal their country's alleged weapons program
in return for asylum, BBC said.
White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the promise of safety or asylum was
necessary, given Saddam Hussein's record of intimidation
