"They want blood, and George W. Bush is not too bothered. By supporting him, Blair is equally guilty," charged a British paper

WASHINGTON, March 8 (IslamOline.net & News Agencies) – Leading American and British newspapers stressed Saturday, March 8, that U.N. chief nuclear inspector Mohammed ElBaradei dealt another blow to U.S. belligerence by confirming that a key piece of alleged evidence linking Iraq to a nuclear weapons program have been fabricated.

Documents that purportedly showed Iraqi officials shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago were deemed "not authentic" after careful scrutiny by U.N. and independent experts, the Washington Post quoted the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as telling the U.N. Security Council Friday, March 7, in a report that called into question U.S. and British claims about Iraq's secret nuclear ambitions.

According to the paper, knowledgeable U.S. sources familiar with the forgery investigation described the faked evidence as a series of letters between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation of Niger.

The forgers, the daily said, had made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away -- including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written.

"We fell for it," the Post quoted one U.S. official who reviewed the documents as confirming.

The discovery was a further setback to U.S. and British efforts to convince reluctant U.N. Security Council members of the urgency of the "threat" posed by Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, underlined the paper.

ElBaradei also rejected a key Bush administration claim -- made twice by the president in major speeches and repeated by Secretary of State Colin Powell Friday -- that Iraq had tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment.

He reported finding no evidence of banned weapons or nuclear material in an extensive sweep of Iraq using advanced radiation detectors.

"There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities," ElBaradei told the Security Council.

Powell, in his statement to the Security Council Friday, acknowledged ElBaradei's findings but also cited "new information" suggesting that Iraq continues to try to get nuclear weapons components.

“Warmongers Of The White House”

leading British newspapers also defended the reports submitted by U.N. chief arms inspector Hans Blix and ElBaradei, asserting they were "balanced," and "most persuasive."  

Echoing the same tone, the fiercely anti-war left-wing Daily Mirror underlined that nothing in Blix's "balanced" report justified an immediate invasion.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "hardly poses any terrifying threat to the world or his neighbors while Dr Blix's teams are at work," the daily said, adding that was not good enough for the "warmongers of the White House".

"They want blood, and George W. Bush is not too bothered. By supporting him, (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair is equally guilty."

The left-wing Guardian daily said, of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, that "if he were as objective as Blix and not politically committed to war, would surely also admit that this report, like its predecessors, provides no basis or justification for a resort to military force at this time."

"There is no doubt that whatever happens to the resolution, America will be ready to go to war the week after next -- with British troops alongside," said a British paper

The paper said that the British-backed ultimatum of March 17 had only deepened the divide in the Security Council between the pro-war and the pro-wait camps, describing an exchange between Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin as the sharpest to date.

The Independent said in an editorial that Blix's characterization as "partial but accelerating" Iraq's compliance with the will of the U.N. was "the most persuasive argument against the rush to war".

"The right and brave course would be for a majority of the council to stand up to American bullying and blandishments and say that we are not yet at that desperate point where the price of delay exceeds the price of war," said the paper.

Washington and London on Friday proposed an amended draft resolution that would force the Council to declare by March 17 that Iraq has fully complied with U.N. disarmament demands and, if not, to authorize military force.

Iraq War In Nine Days

However, other “pro-war” leading U.K. papers said the U.S. and Britain will attack Iraq in nine days if it refuses to disarm, whether or not the U.N. Security Council passes a new resolution authorizing war, leading British newspapers predicted Saturday, March 8.

"There is no doubt that whatever happens to the resolution, America will be ready to go to war the week after next -- with British troops alongside," reported The Times.

"Those smaller nations who do not hold permanent seats on the Security Council should consider this (new resolution) a reasonable compromise and support it," the right-of-centre daily added in an editorial.

The right-wing Daily Telegraph said Washington and London wanted a vote on the new resolution on Tuesday, March 11, and are trying to lure the Security Council to support it.

According to the British newspaper, war is inevitable in light of the large number of U.S. troops now poised to wage a war on Iraq and U.S. President George W. Bush’s latest statements.

The Daily Telegraph quoted Bush as saying Thursday, March 8, that he would force a vote seeking U.N. support for such a campaign within days.

It asserted that any defeat of the U.S.-drafted resolution in the Security Council would not alter Bush’s determination to attack war.

"If we need to act, we will act and we really don't need the U.N.'s approval to do so. When it comes to our security, we really don't need anybody's permission to do so," Bush said.

The Sun, Britain's biggest selling tabloid, described as "wishy washy" chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix’s report to the Security Council on Friday, March 7, but focused on his statement that Iraq had not provided "immediate" cooperation on disarmament as demanded by U.N. Resolution 1441.

"That alone is enough to justify military action," the tabloid claimed.

"When it is reached the council must judge whether Iraq is disarming. Until then there can be scant justification for forcing a vote -- and less still for the U.S.-U.K. alliance to invade Iraq," said The Financial Times.

The business daily called for a "realistic cut-off date" -- weeks, not days or months -- to be set in dealing with Iraq.

In a front-page article, the right-wing Daily Express accused France and Germany of "betraying" Britain.

Meanwhile, Germany had said that its chemical warfare troops would not cross the border into Iraq to aid coalition forces, the paper reported.