- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell
has said the United States will turn its attention to Iraq and its weapons
programs once it has dealt with the al Qaeda organisation and the Taliban
through its military campaign in Afghanistan.
"With respect to our activities in Afghanistan, that is our first
priority. We must defeat al Qaeda, we must end (al Qaeda leader) Osama
bin Laden's terrorist threat to the world and deal with the Taliban regime
who has given them haven," Powell said.
"After that ... we will turn our attention to terrorism throughout
the world, and nations such as Iraq, which have tried to pursue weapons
of mass destruction, should not think that we ... will not turn our attention
to them," he told reporters after talks with a Kuwaiti minister.
The United States began bombing Afghanistan one month ago in an attempt
to stop the Taliban rulers protecting bin Laden and al Qaeda, which Washington
accuses of planning the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that
killed about 4,800 people.
The bombing is part of a war against terrorism the United States says will
eventually target all terrorist organisations of "global reach"
and their supporters.
Powell, standing alongside Deputy Prime Minister Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah
of Kuwait, was answering a question about reports Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister
Tareq Aziz had again asserted an Iraqi claim to neighbouring Kuwait.
The Iraqi invasion and brief annexation of Kuwait in 1990 and 1991 led
to the Gulf War in which the United States and its allies drove out Iraqi
forces and restored the Sabah family to power in Kuwait.
IRAQ PREDICTS ATTACKS
"Mr. Tareq Aziz has been making these rather ridiculous and threatening
statements for many years, so I take them all with a grain of salt,"
Powell said.
Aziz said in an interview last month he expected the United States and
Britain to launch attacks on Iraq, using the war against terrorism as an
excuse to try to oust President Saddam Hussein.
Babel, the newspaper run by Saddam's son Uday, said a few days later that
the attack on Iraq could begin after the Western allies suspend operations
against the al Qaeda organisation and the Taliban in Afghanistan because
of winter.
The State Department has Iraq on its list of seven "state sponsors
of terrorism," although its annual report says Baghdad has not attempted
an attack on Western interests since an alleged plot to assassinate former
U.S. President George Bush during his visit to Kuwait in 1993.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, some have lobbied for attacks on Iraq to make
up for the past three years in which U.N. weapons inspectors have not been
allowed to visit the country.
Under U.N. resolutions passed after the Gulf War of 1991, the U.N. inspectors
were meant to dismantle Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons
programs and make sure the government did not try to revive them.
The U.N. Security Council has a chance to review U.N. sanctions and weapons
inspections when the current U.N.-run oil-for-food program expires at the
end of the month.
A State Department official said on Tuesday he expected the United States
to back a six-month extension of the current system, without changes.
Earlier in the year, Powell tried to ease the restrictions on Iraqi imports
of civilian goods while tightening the controls over military-related imports.
Iraq and Russia opposed the proposals.
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