Blair is Washington’s staunchest ally in the quest for a military invasion of Iraq

LONDON, February 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday, February 13, that Baghdad would be "in breach" of a UN resolution if reports of a long-range ballistic missile are confirmed.

"If these reports are correct, it is very serious and Iraq would be in breach of resolution 1441," said Blair, Washington's chief ally in its push for military action to disarm the Baghdad regime of Saddam Hussein.

The UN disarmament agency was told Wednesday that the range of Iraq's Al Samoud missile exceeds limits set by the Security Council, but it is still analyzing data.

A Russian diplomat said a panel of six experts had told chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix that the Al Samoud had a range "well beyond" the limit of 150 kilometers (90 miles) set by the Council in April 1991 after the Gulf War.

However, Iraq insisted Thursday that the range of the missile is only 150 Kilometers.

As world attention focuses on Friday's report from UN weapons inspectors, the discovery of an Iraqi missile may be the "smoking gun" the United States has sought to launch a war on Baghdad, according to analysts, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Friday's crucial UN Security Council meeting, with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in the chair, is expected to hear evidence that the Al-Samoud missile has a range "well beyond" the 150 kilometers permitted by UN resolutions - and that could trigger war, the British press said Thursday.

"The discovery of a banned weapons system on the eve of (chief UN weapons inspector) Hans Blix's crucial presentation is tantamount to the inspectors finding a 'smoking gun,'" said The Times of London.

Any indication in Blix's report Friday that Iraq is in breach of UN resolution 1441 would almost certainly prompt Britain and the United States to bring a war resolution to the Security Council in days, the newspaper said.

On January 27, Blix told the council that "significant questions remain" as to whether Iraq retained Scud-type missiles after the 1991 Gulf War, when its forces were driven out of Kuwait by a U.S.-led coalition.

Tests of missiles under development exceeded the limit laid down by Council Resolution 687, he said.

However, Russia's commissioner on the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) said it had received a report from experts and were still analyzing data.

"So far UNMOVIC has not reached any conclusion," he said.

Blix is to brief the Security Council in what many diplomats expect to be a confrontational meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and his French, Russian and German counterparts.

Powell said the Security Council was in grave risk of losing its credibility through inaction and reaffirmed that the United States was determined to use force to disarm Iraq.

Schroeder Still Firm on Iraq

The UN inspectors’ report Friday may be the countdown for an attack; analysts

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that UN resolution 1441 on disarming Iraq contained no automatic clause for declaring a war and insisted weapons inspections were making progress.

"This resolution has no automatic clause for declaring a war, none," Schroeder said in a fiery address aimed at explaining policy on Iraq.

He also said there was no need for an official decision to resolve NATO's row over how to defend Turkey in case of war, which has deadlocked the alliance since Monday.

The alliance was meeting for a fourth straight day in Brussels to try to resolve the standoff, which has strained the trans-Atlantic alliance.

In a separate related development, U.S. military officials announced U.S. and British warplanes struck an Iraqi surface-to-surface missile system that had been moved into striking range of U.S. troops in Kuwait for the second time in two days Wednesday.

The missile base, located near Basra in southern Iraq, was struck for the first time Tuesday, but coalition warplanes returned to knock out its radar, they said.

Calls by France, Germany, Russia and China for weapons inspectors to be given more time to do their job before rushing to war were endorsed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

He said the United States and its European critics should "stop screaming at each other" and urged the administration of President George W. Bush to do its part by allowing UN inspections in Iraq to continue a bit longer.