Bush flies to seek Nato support against Iraq

WASHINGTON - American President George W. Bush flies today to a Nato summit in Prague to line up European support for a confrontation with Iraq and to ready the alliance for a new mission against terrorism.

Seven Eastern European countries will be invited to join the 19-member security alliance at the summit in the Czech capital.

Bush said the inclusion of countries that threw off the yoke of totalitarianism should invigorate Nato.

Alliance leaders are also expected to approve a strike force for high-intensity warfare and agree to revamp Nato's increasingly obsolete military command structure.

Before leaving for the summit, Bush declared that Nato's new mission would be the war against terrorism, started by the United States after the September 11 attacks.

Despite a successful military campaign in Afghanistan and terrorism-related arrests around the world, US officials say the war is far from over.

As Nato leaders gather in Prague, America and its allies will be on heightened alert for a new round of attacks by al Qaeda and its elusive leader, Osama bin Laden.

"They're plotting an attack, no question about it," Bush told Radio Free Europe . "That's why we've got to get them."

But the threat of war with Iraq could overshadow the agenda of reshaping the alliance.

Many European countries are uneasy about a possible war with Iraq.

Opinions in Nato run from Britain's solid support for the US position to Germany's steadfast opposition, which has damaged German-American diplomatic relations.

Bush said he would not be asking Nato for military assistance against Iraq at the summit.

If military action was needed, Bush said, he would again consult Nato members "and everybody will be able to make the decision that they're comfortable with".

* A US intelligence analysis has found that an audio recording broadcast last week was almost certainly the voice of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the tape was genuine, suggesting he was alive as recently as late October.

The audiotape broadcast on the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television channel praised attacks that took place as recently as October 28, and was considered the hardest evidence since last December that bin Laden survived the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan.

- REUTERS

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