Bits and pieces on Iraq

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Powell tells Congress there must be regime change in Iraq
Thu Feb 7,10:29 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin Powell says the United
States might have to act alone to bring about a "regime change"
in Iraq.

Powell told House members Wednesday that President George W. Bush
is considering "the most serious set of options one might
imagine" for dealing with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"Regime change is something the United States might have to do
alone," Powell said. "How to do it? I would not like to go into
the details of the options."

But he said Bush is "examining a full range of options."

On Thursday, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told
reporters that Bush has not decided on a course of action.

A freshly announced trip by Vice President Dick Cheney next month
to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Kuwait ? all of which border
Iraq ? raised questions about whether Cheney would seek on that
tour to build support for making Iraq the next target of Bush's
war on terrorism.

"No, I would not urge you to reach that conclusion," Fleischer
said.

The vice president is "going to represent the president on a wide
variety of issues, but the president has not made any
determination to ? quote, unquote ? go into Iraq," Fleischer
said.

In his State of the Union address last week, Bush named Iraq as
part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and North Korea.

Questioned at the House International Relations Committee
hearing, Powell said United Nations inspectors must have an
"unfettered right" to conduct long-term searches in Iraq for
suspect weapons sites and that Bush "is leaving no stone
unturned" as to what the United States might do if Saddam
continues to resist inspection.

Many analysts, both inside and outside the U.S. government,
suspect Iraq is trying to develop long-range missiles, biological
and chemical weapons and possible nuclear devices as well.

Powell said U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iraq was
unlikely to develop a nuclear weapon within a year or shortly
thereafter.

"We still believe strongly in regime change in Iraq, and we look
forward to the day when a democratic, representative government
at peace with its neighbors leads Iraq to rejoin the family of
nations," he said.

Bush has denounced Iraq as part of an "axis of evil" that
includes Iran and North Korea ? countries developing weapons of
mass destruction as well.

Powell dismissed an Iraqi offer to hold talks with the United
Nations, an overture conveyed through the Arab League and
accepted by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Powell said Iraq had to accept the return of accept U.N.
inspectors, and that there was nothing to discuss otherwise.

By contrast, Powell said the Bush administration was open to
"reasonable conversation" with Iran.

Powell said the United States had a long-standing list of
grievances with Iran, including its support for terrorism and
trying to send weapons to the Palestinians.

++++++++++++++++++

Arabs Seen Rebuffing Cheney on Targeting Iraq
Thu Feb 7,11:53 AM ET
By Alistair Lyon, Middle East Diplomatic Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - Arab leaders will give U.S. Vice President
Dick Cheney a generally stony reception if he uses his Middle
Eastern tour in March to seek support for a war on Iraq.


Kuwait, victim of a 1990 Iraqi invasion, might welcome U.S.
military action to oust Saddam Hussein and remove one link in
what President Bush calls an "axis of evil."

In other Arab capitals, officials and analysts say, Cheney may
get a terse response: "Don't expect our help on Iraq while you
back Israel's ever harsher repression of the Palestinians."

Israel, which since the September 11 attacks on the United States
has basked in American sympathy for its struggle with the
Palestinians, will want to discuss perceived threats from Iraq,
Iran -- also part of Bush's "evil axis" -- and maybe Syria.

NATO-member Turkey harbors deep misgivings about any effort to
topple Saddam, but may have little choice but to play along if
its superpower ally is bent on "regime change" in Baghdad.

"Cheney will try to get Arab backing for a strike on Iraq, but it
will be very hard to convince Arab leaders," said Emad Gad of
Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

There has been widespread speculation that Iraq could be the next
target of the war on terrorism after the U.S.-led campaign that
toppled Afghanistan's Taliban protectors of Osama bin Laden, main
suspect for the attacks on New York and Washington.

Cheney, on his first trip abroad since September 11, will make
stops in 11 countries, including Israel and four states bordering
Iraq -- Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Kuwait -- to discuss the
Bush administration's war on global terrorism.

ARAFAT FROZEN OUT

Mary Matalin, a top Cheney aide, said on Wednesday he had no
plans to visit the Palestinian territories or see Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat. "It's not a peace process trip," she said.

That, for many Arab leaders including America's traditional
allies in the region, is the problem.

How, they wonder, can they be expected to collude in a war on a
sanctions-hit Arab nation at a time when the United States is
giving Israel a virtual free hand against the Palestinians?

"Our position is we will definitely not join any coalition to
oust Saddam Hussein," an Egyptian official said bluntly.

Egypt, he said, would not stay silent if and when the United
States attacked Iraq, but its criticism would be less harsh than
that likely to be voiced elsewhere in the Arab world.

Jordan, the only Arab country apart from Egypt to have signed a
peace treaty with Israel, said it could not endorse an attack on
Iraq and would tell Cheney its views on the need to end
Israeli-Palestinian violence and restart peace talks.

"We have repeatedly said that we oppose any (military) strike
against any Arab country," Jordanian Minister of State for
Foreign Affairs Shaher Bak told Reuters.

"The suffering of the Iraqi people is a basic feature of this
crisis," he said. "We implement United Nations resolutions but we
continue to work to lift the blockade."

Iraq has been under U.N. sanctions since its 1990 invasion of
Kuwait. For the past three years it has refused to readmit U.N.
inspectors charged with supervising the dismantling of its
biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

Nevertheless, some analysts argue that even Arab states publicly
opposed to an attack on Iraq would quietly acquiesce if they if
they could be sure it would lead to Saddam's overthrow.

ARAB PLEAS FALL ON DEAF EARS

In recent weeks, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have all sought
to push Washington to play a more active and even-handed role in
defusing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they view as the
region's main source of instability and terrorism.

They have made little visible headway.

This week, Bush welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to
the White House for the third time in a year. He has yet to meet
Arafat, whom he blames for failing to halt a Palestinian revolt
against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Nuclear-capable Israel is gratified that Washington appears to
have adopted its views on Iraq and Iran as implacable sponsors of
terrorism on a quest for weapons of mass destruction with which
to threaten the Jewish state and the West.

Zalman Shoval, a Sharon adviser and former ambassador to the
United States, said he saw Cheney's visit partly as a mark of the
"close position both countries take with regard to the war on
terrorism and the growing danger from the rogue states."

He said that although the United States had a legitimate interest
in staying friends with its traditional Arab allies, Israel,
along with a few other states in the region, was its most
reliable and stable ally in the war on terror.

"Certainly Israel will be a in a very central position in regard
to these (U.S.) plans," he said. "Israel...is under direct threat
from the armaments program going on in Iran as well as the threat
emanating from Iraq and, I would add, Syria."

Shoval said he would be surprised if Cheney expanded his trip to
Palestinian-ruled areas. "America is engaged in a war against
terror. Arafat is on the side of terror," he declared.

Cheney can expect a hero's welcome in Kuwait in token of his role
as defense secretary during the 1991 Gulf War. Kuwait has a
formal defense pact with the United States, unlike Saudi Arabia.

U.S.-Saudi relations have come under unusual strain since the
September 11 attacks, in which 15 of the 19 suicide- hijackers
were Saudi nationals. Riyadh says it opposes any attack on Iraq.

TURKISH DILEMMA

Turkey, which lets U.S. and British warplanes patrol a no-fly
zone in Kurdish-held northern Iraq, has often said it is against
any assault on its southeastern neighbor. Prime Minister Bulent
Ecevit, who reiterated that stance to Bush during a visit to
Washington in January, has written twice to Saddam in the past
month, urging him to let U.N. inspectors return to avert the
"severe consequences" of a U.S. attack.

Turkey fears that blitzing Baghdad could revive unrest among its
own Kurds, damage the economy and possibly dismember Iraq.

But Sami Kohen, a columnist at Milliyet newspaper, said
cash-strapped Ankara had to consider its reliance on Washington.

"Turkey depends so much on U.S. support, as we have seen with the
IMF and other issues, that I don't see how Turkey really would be
in a position to say 'no' to Bush (on Iraq) in case some kind of
a request comes from him," Kohen said.