US/IRAQ: The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald, Rumsfeld, yesterday brushing aside Iraq's denials that it has weapons of mass destruction, insisting that Baghdad has them and that UN inspectors would make their own conclusions.
"Rather than react to statements that may or may not have been made by any of these folks, I'll just simply say they do have them," Mr Rumsfeld told reporters.
"The purpose of the UN resolution, of course, is for them to allow UN inspectors in and to allow inspectors to make their own conclusions."
Iraq's Foreign Minister Mr Najih Sabri denied in a letter to UN secretary-general Mr Kofi Annan that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Meanwhile America's Roman Catholic bishops have urged President Bush and other world leaders to "step back from the brink of war" with Iraq, saying it was not clear such a conflict would be justified.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement approved at the group's national meeting in Washington, that Baghdad must "cease its internal repression, end its threats to its neighbours, stop any support for terrorism, abandon its efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction and destroy all such existing weapons".