IRAQ: Bush Demands Saddam Hussein And Sons Leave; U.N. Evacuates

Twelve hours after abandoning efforts to usher a second resolution through a deeply divided Security Council, U.S. President George W. Bush last night made good on prior threats to go it alone by issuing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to leave the country with his sons within 48 hours or face war against the United States and a few allies.

Shortly thereafter, the United Nations evacuated its weapons inspectors in Iraq, and world leaders offered reactions ranging from staunchly supportive to deeply disapproving (Richard Stevenson, New York Times, March 18). The U.N. Security Council announced today that it will hold consultations this afternoon on Iraq (Jim Wurst, UN Wire, March 18).

In a televised address from the White House, Bush gave no date or time for an initial attack by the 250,000 troops amassed in the Persian Gulf, although the 48-hour deadline would suggest it could happen Wednesday. The New York Times reports that U.S. officials have made it clear the allied forces, consisting of 225,000 U.S. troops and 25,000 British troops, will invade Iraq whether or not Hussein leaves.

Bush criticized Security Council members that had opposed U.S. efforts to secure backing for a second resolution authorizing war against Iraq. "These governments share our assessment of the danger [posed by Iraq], but not our resolve to meet it," said Bush. "The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities. So we will rise to ours" (Stevenson, New York Times).

"The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security," he said (New York Times, March 18).

Bush assured Iraqi viewers that soldiers would be prosecuted for war crimes and civilians were not the targets of U.S. artillery but the beneficiaries of a war of liberation. "We will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free ... there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms," he said (Stevenson, New York Times).

Saddam Hussein Rebuffs Bush's Threat

Hussein responded today with a rare appearance on state television in uniform at a meeting of his Cabinet. "The meeting stressed that Iraq and all its sons were fully ready to confront the invading aggressors and repel them," a television announcer said, reading a Cabinet statement.

Hussein's elder son Uday said, "The wives and mothers of those Americans who will fight us will weep blood, not tears" (Nadim Ladki, Reuters, March 18).

According to Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammed al-Douri, "This will be really the very bad solution for the whole region, for Iraq, for the United States ... and for humanity. ... This will destabilize not only the region but other parts of the world."

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf told a reporter with the Qatar-based broadcast network al-Jazeera that Hussein "will stay in place like a solid rock" as the Iraqi president denied he has weapons of mass destruction (Scott Lindlaw, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, March 18).

A senior Russian official who met Uday Hussein in Baghdad yesterday said neither the Iraqi president nor his sons intend to leave (Reuters, March 18).

The World Responds

World leaders who had previously opposed military action were unswayed. French President Jacques Chirac, who has borne the brunt of U.S. anger toward the Security Council for leading an effort to continue weapons inspections, said this morning in a press conference that "there is no justification for a unilateral decision in favor of war" against Iraq at this time, even though France acknowledges the necessity of disarmament and the desirability of regime change.

Chirac called the decision to choose war a "grave" one that "compromises for the future peaceful methods of resolving crises related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

Chirac defended France's actions in the Security Council, saying that "France acted in the name of the primacy of law and in accordance with its understanding of the agreement between people and nations" (Agence France-Presse/Le Figaro, March 18, UN Wire translation).

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder asked, "Does the threat posed by the Iraqi dictator justify a war, which is sure to kill thousands of innocent children, women and men? My answer in this case is: No."

China's new prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said in a speech on his second day in office that "as long as there is one glimmer of hope, we will not give up our efforts for a peaceful settlement."

Mexican President Vicente Fox, whose government was one of six nations on the Security Council that never committed to a position on a divisive resolution sponsored by the United States, United Kingdom and Spain, said "the diplomatic means to achieving (the goal) have not been exhausted." A spokesman for the Indian government noted that New Delhi's support has been for "the supremacy of multilateralism." Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, expressed disappointment in Bush's ultimatum and cast its support for a Security Council-backed solution as well (Gary Schaeffer, AP/Yahoo! News, March 18).

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday condemned military action against Iraq as a potentially grave risk to international security (Schaeffer, AP II/Yahoo! News, March 18). Arab League spokesman Hisham Yussef told reporters following Bush's address that "the Arab League cannot accept such a final warning." He added, "We regret the U.S. decision to act outside the U.N. Security Council and outside international legality" (AFP/Yahoo! News, March 18).

Speaking on Vatican Radio yesterday, Archbishop Renato Raffaele Martino of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace denounced the United States' intent to disarm Iraq by force. "Do not reply with a stone to the child who asks for bread," said the Vatican's former representative to the United Nations. "They are preparing to reply with thousands of bombs to a people that has been asking for bread for the last 12 years" (AFP/Dawn, March 17).

Three British Ministers Resign

In the United Kingdom, the political fallout for Prime Minister Tony Blair over his support for Washington began with the resignation of Robin Cook, a Cabinet minister and former foreign minister, and continued today with the resignations of Lord Hunt, a junior health minister, and John Denham, a Home Office minister (Warren Hoge, New York Times, March 18).

Cook, leader of the House of Commons, praised Blair's efforts to gain consensus on the controversial Security Council resolution but criticized the breakdown of key alliances in the wake of the U.S.-British-Spanish decision to abandon seeking a vote for the resolution.

"Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible," Cook said in a speech to the House of Commons. "History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition. ... tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened: The European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalemate" (BBC Online, March 18).

Clare Short, the secretary for international development who threatened to quit if the United Kingdom goes to war without Security Council approval, announced today that she will stay on (Hoge, New York Times).

Domestic opposition within the United States was evident, with Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle telling a group of union employees yesterday that he was "saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war" (Lindlaw, AP/Yahoo! News). Before Bush's evening address, 200 anti-war protesters marched to the U.S. Capitol, where 54 were arrested. Newsday reports that an unidentified man who drove a tractor into the reflecting pond near the Washington Monument was playing recordings of military cadences as he did so (Fulton/Porio, Newsday, March 18).

Bush received some support from the international community. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, "It was a decision that had to be made. We support the U.S. position." Australian Prime Minister John Howard committed 2,000 troops to a U.S.-led attack, saying he believed "very strongly the position the government has taken is right" (Schaeffer, AP/Yahoo! News). South Korea also backed the U.S. president and offered to send 500 military engineers to aid the combat effort, although it ruled out dispatching troops (Jong-Heon Lee, United Press International, March 18).

Weapons Inspectors Leave Iraq

Following yesterday's orders by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan for all U.N. inspectors and humanitarian workers to evacuate Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors left Baghdad this morning bound for Cyprus. U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said 56 inspectors, plus staff, were on board a flight that departed at 10:25 a.m. Officials have estimated the total number of U.N. evacuees to be 150.

"It's unfortunate we have to leave now," said Ueki. "I think all the inspectors and support staff have done our best" (Hamza Hendawi, AP/Yahoo! News, March 18). Yesterday inspectors supervised the destruction of two more al-Samoud 2 missiles, bringing to 72 the number of banned weapons destroyed by Iraq. They also conducted a private interview with a biological scientist, the 14th such interview since mid-January (U.N. release, March 17).

Diplomats from Germany, the Czech Republic, India, China, Bahrain and the United Kingdom were leaving Iraq and Kuwait this morning as well. The United States had already ordered nonessential staff out of Kuwait, Syria, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, adding Lebanon to the list yesterday. Foreign journalists, including crews from ABC, NBC and China's Xinhua News Agency, were leaving Baghdad (Hendawi, AP/Yahoo! News).

Blix Submits "Key Disarmament Tasks" Report

As Annan was ordering weapons inspectors and other U.N. staff to leave Iraq, U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission chief Hans Blix yesterday distributed to the Security Council his long-awaited report on Iraq's "key remaining disarmament tasks."

The report, mandated by Resolution 1284, lists the tasks under 12 headings, most of them dealing with fate of chemical and biological weapons agents Iraq was known to have before inspectors first left at the end of 1998. Iraq maintains that these agents have been destroyed but UNMOVIC is demanding proof of this.

Blix's proposed program of work would require Iraq to "present any remaining quantities" of anthrax, botulinum toxin, mustard gas, VX, sarin, binary agents or "credible evidence" that these agents have destroyed or spoiled. Iraq would also be required to "present any remaining chemical and/or biological munitions, including aerial bombs, rockets or missile warheads, artillery shells, cluster munitions and fragmentation rounds."

The report seeks that Iraq account for its research into producing Scuds and other long-range missiles, its import of missile fuel and to "explain with credible evidence which missile systems, and their specifications, it intended to be tested" at a major test site. UNMOVIC also wants Iraq to explain the purposes of various programs for the production of unmanned drones.

The report is a distillation of a lengthy document Blix presented to the council on March 7.

Echoing an earlier statement to the council, Blix wrote that the time needed to complete this program of work "is months rather than weeks or years," assuming "a proactive Iraqi cooperation."

German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger, one of the council's key advocates of continuing inspections, said this morning, "it makes sense" to hear from Blix tomorrow because "the inspection system will remain and it might be useful in the future." The report "is going to be discussed in the council as it should be," Pleuger said, adding that the Blix report is mandated by Resolution 1284 and the resolution "has not been repealed and cannot be repealed by things that are happening outside of the United Nations."

"It is wrong to say diplomacy and the United Nations have failed because the United Nations and diplomacy have created the instruments to achieve the common goal of the peaceful disarmament of Iraq," Pleuger added, referring to the inspections regime.

Germany and France had suggested the council meet tomorrow at the ministerial level to receive the new report. Foreign ministers from at least six countries, including France, Russia and Germany but not the United States, are planning to attend (Wurst, UN Wire).

Pleuger said yesterday he was working on "a last-ditch effort" to find a resolution and that "trying to save the peace is never a dream. It is useful and it is necessary." Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, said that "the time for diplomacy never ends."

Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei will address the council tomorrow (U.N. release II, March 17).

Kurds Fleeing Iraqi Towns; Baghdad Prepares

Fearing ethnic cleansing by Iraqi troops, thousands of Kurds began fleeing the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk for the border of the Kurdish autonomous region.

Officials at the border crossing of Cham Chamal said 1,300 refugees had arrived in the past two days. Refugees told reporters yesterday that Iraqi security police last week started arresting Kurdish men and taking them to Baath Party headquarters (London Telegraph, March 18). They also said they feared conventional and chemical attack from Hussein's troops (Chivers/Rohde, New York Times, March 17).

In Baghdad, the city's 4.5 million residents reportedly had little outside information about U.S. plans to invade. Nonetheless they formed long lines at gas stations and stocked up on water, fuel and food. The 350-mile road to Jordan was said to be busier than usual (John Burns, New York Times, March 18).

Aid Agencies Want Answers From U.S.

Relief organizations clashed with the Bush administration yesterday over how to operate inside Iraq once fighting has died down. "We would like the U.N. to lead (the relief effort) and we would be unhappy working under the military," said Amy Barry, spokeswoman for Oxfam. "We think the best way of delivering civilian assistance is via civilian organizations." The United States plans to send its 64-member Disaster Assistance Response Team into areas as soon as fighting ceases to assess needs and serve as intermediary between the U.S. military and the aid agencies" (Drummond/Politi, Financial Times, March 18).

Aid agencies fear that if combat drags on, a severe humanitarian crisis will set in.

"The major fear is not that people will go hungry in the early part of the war," said Roland Huguenin-Benjamin, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baghdad. "If it's a protracted crisis, lots of problems may appear."

The United Nations is gearing up for a relief effort, but donor countries have only given $30 million of the $124 million needed to fund it (Michael Slackman, Los Angeles Times, March 18).

Reconstruction Contracts Raise Eyebrows

The London Guardian reports today that the United States plans to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure within a year of war's end and will pay U.S. companies $1.5 billion to do the job, while the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations would receive just $50 million for their role in reconstruction. Documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal outlined the plan, according to the British newspaper. Typically the U.N. Development Program coordinates postwar rebuilding efforts. The UNDP has estimated that reconstruction will cost $10 billion a year for at least three years.

By contrast, the administration is reportedly going to ask Congress for a total of $1.8 billion for reconstruction in the first year and $800 million for humanitarian assistance.

UNDP Administrator March Malloch Brown said the one-year timetable "flies in the face of human history," while European Union External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten called the administration's approach "exceptionally maladroit" (Oliver Burkeman, London Guardian, March 18). Administration officials say it is important to give contracts to U.S. corporations in order to show the Iraqi people that the United States is a "liberator" bringing good things to their nation (Elizabeth Becker, New York Times, March 18).