WASHINGTON, March 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As U.N. chief weapons inspector lauded the Iraqi "proactive" cooperation with U.N. inspectors, pro-war U.S. President George Bush met his top war planners Wednesday, March 5, apparently to put the final touches for the looming U.S.-led war on Iraq.

Blix, head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), said Iraq has been cooperating proactively with his inspectors for the past month.

Asked at a news conference Wednesday to judge flatly whether or not Iraq had cooperated "fully" as required by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, Blix replied: "There are lots of questions in this world to which you should not answer yes or no."

Blix is due to report on Friday, March 7, to the Security Council, which has begun negotiations on a draft resolution sponsored by Britain and the United States, to curtail weapons inspections and trigger war against Iraq.

"In the past month they (the Iraqis) have been proactive," Blix underlined, but he declined to say how long it would take to complete the inspections because "the track record has not been very good" in the past.

In a report released Friday, Blix complained that "Iraq could have made greater efforts" since inspections began on November 27 to find banned weapons or present "credible evidence" that it had destroyed them.

But he asserted that his report had been overtaken by Iraq's agreement to destroy its banned Al-Samoud 2 missiles.

"Maybe I would not have written that sentence in the light of what they have done recently."

Iraq has destroyed 28 missiles since Saturday, more than a quarter of the total it has either delivered to its armed forces or has in production.

Blix also said that his UNMOVIC has interviewed seven Iraqi scientists "on our own terms."

He said that meant without official minders or recorders present.

"I assume that the Iraqi side have encouraged people" to come forward for interview, he said.

Bush Meets War Planners

While Blix's statements raised hopes for a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis, U.S. officials kept war looming closer through more deployments to the Gulf, meetings of war planners and more statements dismissing Iraqi cooperation with U.N. experts as a part of deception.

Bush met late Wednesday with top Iraq war planners, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf, Army General Tommy Franks.

Rumsfeld, Franks and General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived at the presidential mansion just before 9:00 am. They did not speak to reporters.

Bush, who has been fighting an uphill battle to get a divided U.N. Security Council to approve a new resolution widely seen as paving the way for war against Iraq, always claims U.S.-led military action does not require U.N. approval.

Powell: Iraq Produces New Missiles

"We have received further intelligence from multiple sources showing that Iraq is continuing in its efforts to deceive the inspectors," claimed Powell

U.S Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has taken no strategic and political decision to disarm, alleging new U.S. intelligence shows that Iraq is deceiving United Nations weapons inspectors and producing missiles.

"Nothing we have seen since the passage of (resolution) 1441 indicates that Saddam Hussein has taken a strategic and political decision to disarm," Powell said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He charged that Iraq's intelligence agencies were working to deter scientists linked to its alleged weapons of mass destruction programs from attending interviews with U.N. inspectors.

Powell claimed new U.S. intelligence data showed that Iraqi leaders had ordered "continued production" of Al-Samoud 2 missile stocks it has started to destroy.

"We have received further intelligence from multiple sources showing that Iraq is continuing in its efforts to deceive the inspectors."

He said Iraq intended to destroy "only a portion" of the Al-Samoud missiles it has promised the United Nations to scrap.

Saddam has in the next few days one final opportunity to disarm peacefully, Powell added.

War To Oust Saddam: Rumsfeld

If the United States does go to war, it will be to remove the Iraqi regime from power, Rumsfeld said.

"In the event that force has to be used, and that decision has not been made, it will be made because of the failure on the part of Saddam Hussein and his regime to cooperate with the 17 U.N. resolutions," he claimed.

"Therefore the goal of the use of force would be unambiguously to have the people who did not cooperate not there, no longer in charge of that country," he said.

Franks, for his part, made it clear that his military forces were ready to go if Bush decides to take military action against Iraq.

"If the president of the United States decides to undertake action, we are in a position to provide a military option," Franks said at a news conference with Rumsfeld Wednesday.

"Our troops in the field are trained, they are ready, they are capable, and if the president of the United States decides to undertake a military operation with the coalition mentioned by the secretary, there is no doubt we will prevail," Franks said.

Myers Warn of War Casualty

"I don't think that's a promise that anyone in uniform can make, that this is going to be a casualty-free war," said Myers

Myers warned Americans Tuesday, March 4, to be prepared for casualties if the United States goes to war with Iraq, saying it would not be like earlier conflicts in the Gulf in which few U.S. service members were killed.

"I think though that the American public needs to understand that if the military is ordered to go into Iraq, that this will be war, that war is a very dangerous and ugly thing, and there will be casualties," said Myers in a radio interview.

He added the number of casualties U.S. forces can expect to sustain was "unknowable," but one of the biggest factors would be whether Iraq uses chemical or biological weapons and whether its army has a will to fight.

"I don't think that's a promise that anyone in uniform can make, that this is going to be a casualty-free war. That's almost an oxymoron," Myers stressed.

"I don't think anyone should have the opinion that this is going to be antiseptic, that it will be just like Desert Storm was or the Kosovo air campaign. It can be different from that, and we've got to make ourselves ready," he said.

Myers underlined that U.S. forces can operate effectively in northern Iraq without Turkey's support but "it's going to be much more difficult”.

The Turkey parliament rejected a plan to let as many as 62,000 US troops use Turkey to open a northern front in Iraq.