Bush blasts 'homicidal dictator'

CINCINNATI - United States President George W. Bush said yesterday that the threat posed by Iraq and its suspected weapons of mass destruction only grows worse with time, and he vowed to use the full power of the US military if needed to force Baghdad to disarm.

"We refuse to live in fear," Bush said in a speech in Ohio laying out the US case against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein whom he called a "homicidal dictator addicted to weapons of mass destruction" .

Bush sought to shape public opinion and influence the debate in Congress to ensure overwhelming support for a resolution in the coming days authorising the use of military force against Iraq if needed.

"The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time."

Bush said he hoped military action will not be required but that it might be necessary and could be difficult. He warned Iraqi generals to resist any orders from Saddam for "cruel and desperate measures," which Bush aides said would be a chemical weapon attack against an invading army or Iraqi minorities.

"If [the generals] do not refuse, they must understand that all war criminals will be pursued and punished.

"If we have to act, we will take every precaution that is possible. We will plan carefully. We will act with the full power of the US military. We will act with allies at our side. And we will prevail."

Senior British and American commanders believe that a coup is almost certain to take place in Baghdad to depose Saddam on the eve of, or very early into, a new conflict. They also believe that the damage caused by the Iraqi's using chemical or biological weapons in an open battlefield may not be as destructive as has been feared.

Senior officers hold that as much of the Iraqi armed forces as possible must be left intact in a post-Saddam Iraq to maintain order and prevent Shia and Kurdish forces from dismembering the country.

Bush said Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of kilometres. Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. The US is concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using unmanned aerial vehicles to target the US.

Trying to make a link with the September 11 attacks, Bush said Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade, and that among the al Qaeda members who fled Afghanistan for Iraq was a "very senior al Qaeda leader" who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year.

To date, however, US officials have presented no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks.

Failure to act, he said, would embolden tyrants, allow terrorists access to new weapons and new resources and "make blackmail a permanent feature of world events."

Two possible Democratic presidential contenders said Bush was bungling US relations with allies and underestimating the difficulty of rebuilding Iraq.

North Carolina Senator John Edwards blamed Bush for being slow to enlist international support, making an inadequate effort in Russia and elsewhere to stem the flow of materials for weapons of mass destruction and for asserting "a new doctrine that suggests a uniquely American right to use force wherever and whenever we decide it's appropriate."

Edwards said the Bush Administration "often treats allies as an afterthought," and said "it was wrong not trying to build an international consensus from the beginning" in its showdown with Iraq.

Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman said the Administration should take steps now to prepare for rebuilding Iraq after Saddam.

Meanwhile, Britain's military forces are expected to be given Downing Street's go-ahead by the end of this month to prepare for an Iraq war.

It will take two months from then, and £90 million, to get the Army's chief battle tank, Challenger 2, "desertised" for combat, and move other equipment and manpower into place, according to senior Whitehall sources.

According to the projected timetable for a new Gulf War drawn up by defence planners in London and Washington, an air campaign could begin by the end of November, with a land offensive early in the new year.

- REUTERS, INDEPENDENT


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