US ready to 'go nuclear'

BAGHDAD - The United States yesterday raised the temperature in its confrontation with Iraq over weapons of mass destruction, saying it could go nuclear if such weapons were used against its forces or its allies.

The warning came as United Nations arms experts yesterday carried out their most intensive inspections in Iraq yet, and as the US ruffled feathers in the Security Council with its handling of the Iraqi document on its weapons programmes.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry accused Washington of trying to find a pretext for war by wresting from the UN control of distribution of the nearly 12,000-page document detailing Iraq's weapons programme.

The White House dismissed the accusation as "laughable", but fellow Security Council members such as Norway and Syria said they were being treated as second-class powers in the handling of the issue.

UN arms experts fanned out to inspect 10 sites across Iraq, including the suspected centre of Iraq's nuclear programme - a phosphate facility at al-Qaem, 400km north-west of Baghdad, said to have produced refined uranium ore.

It was the largest one-day operation by UN inspectors since their hunt for alleged banned weapons resumed last month.

The number of experts in Iraq rose to about 70 with the arrival of about two dozen inspectors.

"We can inspect far more sites simultaneously," said the UN spokesman in Baghdad, Yashuhiro Ueki.

At the UN in New York, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said he hoped to have an assessment of the arms declaration next week after distributing an edited version of the document to the full Security Council. Blix said he expected to give the document to all members by Monday, after it had been purged of sensitive information.

The dossier, which is supposed to give a full account of Iraq's past and present weapons programmes, was ordered by the Security Council as part of its tough Resolution 1441, demanding Iraq disarm or face serious consequences.

The US, which has built up forces in the region and held exercises in case of war against Iraq, issued a statement outlining its strategy against nuclear, chemical and biological weapons - the first update since 1993.

The document said deterring attacks with the threat of "overwhelming force" was an essential element in protecting America and its allies from weapons of mass destruction, also known as WMD.

"The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force - including through resort to all our options - to the use of WMD against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies," the strategy report said.

Senior US officials said the passage on nuclear deterrence was not a change in policy but had been added to the document to put increased emphasis on the role of deterrence against a weapons of mass destruction attack.

Russia - one of the five permanent council members along with the US, France, Britain and China - said the UN weapons inspectors should draw their own conclusions about Iraq's dossier before states accused Baghdad of violating UN resolutions.

"There should be no pressure on the inspectors from outside," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said, in comments apparently intended as a warning to the Bush Administration.

Moscow is concerned that Washington could use its copy of the Iraq dossier to pre-empt the Security Council, declare Iraq in breach of its commitments and launch military action.

US President George W. Bush has said Iraq would be lying if it said it had no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, but Baghdad said this was the truth.

Diplomats and US officials said the US had received an early and uncut copy of Iraq's weapons declaration and whisked it to Washington for analysis. It then distributed copies to Britain, France, Russia and China.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said some Security Council members had criticised Washington for its approach, but he rejected charges that by allowing the manoeuvre the UN had proved it was Washington's puppet.

"The consensus of the group was that in substance perhaps the decision was fine, but the approach and the style and the form was wrong because the council had decided last Friday that nobody would get it," he said.

"It was unfortunate and I hope it is not going to be repeated."

The US, which struggled for weeks to get France, China and Russia to go along with the new Security Council resolution on Iraqi disarmament, defended its actions.

"Based on the council president's decision, which was an appropriate one and consistent with the resolution, we assisted in ensuring the safeguards against release, transmission of proliferation-sensitive information, making sure that that wasn't jeopardised," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said.

"We got the copies to all of those members with that expertise, and all together we'll be assessing the full document to see about proliferation-sensitive information so that then we can make available to other members of the council a working document as soon as possible." White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said teams of US translators and government officials had started examining the declaration. The US was put in charge of making duplicates for its four fellow permanent council members on the grounds that Washington had the best photocopying capabilities.

The Security Council president for December, Colombian Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, said he made the decision to cede power over the dossier after pressure from Washington. He said he called Security Council members and "we did it".

In London, Iraqi opposition groups said work could start in the next few days to train thousands of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's opponents for combat.

They said US defence officials and Iraqi opposition figures were working out a programme.

Nabeel Musawi, a senior member of the Iraqi National Congress, told a news conference the training would start in Europe and in the region.

The US has asked Hungary for use of a military base for such training, Hungarian media reported.

Kuwait said yesterday that it had stepped up security after Saddam urged Kuwaitis to struggle against US forces in the oil-rich state.

Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Khaled al-Sabah said the measures included placing security teams on board oil-carrying and other vessels and making the country's coast and waters off limits from sunset to sunrise.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: Iraq