US-EU RELATIONS: The rift between the United States and the European Union over Iraq deepened yesterday, with US President Bush expressing frustration with allies reluctant to accept that time was running out for Saddam Hussein to disarm.
Several European countries, including France and Germany, as well as the chief UN weapons inspectors, have argued for more time for inspections following the inspectors' first formal report to the UN on January 27th.
"This business about more time, how much time do we need to see clearly that he's not disarming?" Mr Bush told reporters, adding with a flash of impatience, "Surely our friends have learned lessons from the past." Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "has been given ample time to disarm," Mr Bush said. "This looks like a rerun of a bad movie and I'm not interested in watching it."
"He's not disarming. He's delaying, he's deceiving, he's asking for time, he's playing hide and seek with the inspectors," he added.
Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said yesterday on his return from Baghdad, where he and chief weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix met Iraqi leaders on Sunday and Monday, "I am pleading for the inspection process to take its course." Several more months were needed for that, he said.
Yesterday the EU rejected a war on Iraq without the backing of the UN, and said weapons inspectors must have time to do their job. This follows France's suggestion at the UN security council on Monday it would use its veto power to block any US resolution authorising military action.
Greek Foreign Minister Mr George Papandreou, who plans to lead an EU mission to the Middle East at the end of January in a bid to avert war, said yesterday there was no need for a conflict if Iraq cooperated with weapons inspectors.
That argument was rejected out of hand by US Deputy Secretary of State Mr Richard Armitage, who warned that time was running out for Saddam Hussein to disclose his alleged stockpiles of banned weapons.
Underling this message, the US Defence Department announced yesterday it was sending its most modern army combat division, the 4th Infantry Division, with 37,000 soldiers, tanks, attack helicopters and artillery, to the Gulf region, as well as two more aircraft carriers to join two others already there.
Mr Armitage yesterday launched a dossier of "Iraq's Apparatus of Lies", part of a concerted attempt by the administration to frame the case for war against Iraq. This process is expected to culminate in President Bush's State of the Nation address on Tuesday next.
Mr Armitage chided US allies who hung their hopes on Iraqi compliance for "dangerous wishful thinking". If the international community was unwilling to see that Iraq was disarmed, the US and like-minded nations "will have no choice but to step in the breach", he said. "We will take a stand." To the people who asked, why now, "I say we have already waited too long. This is a dangerous situation. And today, right now, time is running out."
Welcoming the find of chemical warheads last week, Mr Armitage said it raised a basic question. "Where are the other 29,984 because that's how many empty chemical warheads the UN special commission estimated he had? Where are the 550 artillery shells that are filled with mustard gas and the 400 biological weapons, capable aerial bombs and the 26,000 litres of anthrax, of botulin, of the sarin gas, that the UN says he has?." There were "thousands and thousands of weapons, tons of materials, and hundreds of key documents including a credible list of Iraqi scientists that remain unaccounted for," said Mr Armitage. There may be no "smoking gun" but there was in fact "nothing but smoke".
The US had prepared for war, and "if Iraq is not disarming then we must have the guts to draw that conclusion and take another course." The traditional levers of influence, international pressure and international scrutiny were simply not working, he said, and this had resulted in "impunity on a staggering scale".
White House press secretary Mr Ari Fleischer said that the world body "needed President Bush to come along and give it the spine" to get a resolution sending inspectors back to Iraq last November, and he reminded reporters that the UN would collapse like the old League of Nations if it failed the test of will over Iraq.