Bush Warns Iraq of 'Serious Consequences'
Jan. 22, 2003 -- President Bush warned Iraqi troops of "serious consequences" should they use weapons of mass destruction, as the nation's top military officer said U.S. forces gathering in the Persian Gulf were prepared to initiate combat operations at any time.
"We're ready now," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters. "The Iraqi regime should have no doubt."
Myers, a four-star Air Force general, said the tens of thousands of U.S. military troops gathering in the Persian Gulf could wait for months without losing their war-fighting edge.
Earlier, on a visit to St. Louis, the president said, "There will be serious consequences for any Iraqi general or soldier who were to use weapons of mass destruction on our troops or on innocent lives within Iraq."
Should any Iraqi receive such an order, Bush continued, "my advice is don't follow that order because if you choose to do so when Iraq is liberated, you will be treated, tried and persecuted [sic] as a war criminal."
For the second day, the president also voiced frustration at those calling for U.N. weapons inspectors to be given more time in Iraq.
He accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of "playing hide-and-seek in a huge country" to deceive the inspectors and avoid having to give up weapons of mass destruction.
France and Germany Resist the Tide of War
However, France and Germany locked arms today to block moves toward a U.S.-led war on Iraq, saying they opposed a conflict there and thought U.N. arms inspectors needed far more time to do their job.
French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, speaking after celebrating 40 years as the key axis of power in the European Union, told television in their nations that war was "the worst of all solutions" to the crisis.
And when NATO ambassadors debated the matter at alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, diplomats said France and Germany blocked a decision on whether to prepare supporting measures for any U.S.-led conflict in Iraq.
"We see today, with the inspectors' report, that an added delay is needed and that the indispensable disarmament of Iraq and Iraq's active cooperation in this disarmament is a necessity," Chirac told French and German television.
Asked how long the delay could be, he noted that Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had recently spoken of needing several months.
Schroeder said he would do all in his power to make sure the current Iraq crisis was solved without the use of force and said Berlin, now a rotating member of the 15-seat Security Council, would not support a war resolution at the United Nations.
"Don't expect Germany to approve a resolution legitimizing war, don't expect it," he said.
Chirac said France was keeping its options open as suited its role as one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council but was keeping in daily contact with Germany.
In other developments:
Myers also said today without elaborating that "there are some indications of unrest in some of the Iraqi leadership, but just hints." But he added that Saddam has not made substantial changes in the positioning or readiness of his military forces, and that lines of military authority showed no signs of fraying.
The White House denied Iraq's claim that its air defenses shot down an unmanned American spy plane.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said a war against Iraq could last "four days, four weeks or four months," and that it seemed reasonable to expect that large numbers of Iraqi troops would surrender early as they did in the 1991 Gulf War.
Gen. Tommy Franks, the leader of U.S. Central Command who would run a war against Iraq, left his Tampa, Fla., headquarters Tuesday night for a weeklong visit to the Persian Gulf region, officials said. Details of his trip were being withheld for security reasons.
Inspections Continue
Meanwhile, In New York, chief inspector Hans Blix accused Iraq of placing unacceptable limits on inspectors' use of the venerable U-2 spy plane to search for Baghdad's weapons.
"They are not denying it, or rejecting it, but they are putting up conditions that would be unacceptable and stronger than they were in the past," Blix told reporters on the way into his offices at U.N. headquarters.
The Iraqi government thus far has resisted allowing overflights by American U-2 reconnaissance planes at a time when the U.S. military is massing troops near Iraq's border for a possible attack.
Iraqi officials said experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visited at least four sites in central and south Iraq today ahead of Monday's report to the Security Council on Iraq's cooperation.
An UNMOVIC biological team visited the Technology Institute in Baghdad, where they were met by a student protest over the inspection, witnesses said.
A chemical team traveled south of Baghdad to inspect the Al-Qaqaa missile complex. A missile team inspected the facility on Tuesday.
A missile team visited the al-Badr missile complex in Mahmoudiya, 28 miles south of Baghdad. All buildings and equipment involved in the Badr-2000 missile were destroyed under the U.N. Special Commission, the previous U.N. body in charge of disarming Iraq.
An IAEA team headed to the University of Basra, 330 miles south of Baghdad. The team traveled to Basra on Tuesday.
Iraqi Paper Blasts ‘Little Bush’
Iraq's influential newspaper Babil described President Bush's remarks on Tuesday that Iraq was not disarming as "stupid and disgusting."
"Little Bush knows very well that Iraq doesn't possess weapons of mass destruction but he is repeating his accusation against Iraq because he has failed to prove the opposite," Babil, newspaper of President Saddam's son Odai, said in a front-page editorial.
"Bush has become the laughingstock of world leaders and peoples," the paper said, in clear reference to opposition to war by U.S. allies.
"Bush should keep silent and let the inspectors do their job without pressure and blackmail," it added.