- MUNICH - A senior adviser
to United States Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld indicated war with
Iraq was likely even if Baghdad backs down and allows inspectors back in
to hunt for weapons of mass destruction, according to an interview on
Monday.
-
- "I don't think there's anything (Iraqi leader)
Saddam Hussein could do that would convince us there's no longer any
danger
coming from Iraq," said Richard Perle, head of the Defense Policy
Board of the US Department of Defence and a top Rumsfeld adviser.
-
- Perle, quoted in an interview with the German edition
of the Financial Times at the Munich Security Conference, said the only
thing that would convince the US regarding Iraq would be a change of
regime.
-
- US President George W. Bush was now on "a very
clear path" heading toward war with Iraq, said Perle as quoted by
the Financial Times Deutschland.
-
- The newspaper said if Perle was right even Iraq's
meeting
the US demand for the return of international inspectors would do nothing
to prevent American military strikes.
-
- Perle said Afghanistan was a possible model for a war
with Iraq. Such a scenario would include massive US air strikes on Iraq,
special operations units on the ground and the use of domestic opposition
groups to carry the main burden of ground war, said Perle.
-
- "The potential fighting forces would be Kurds in
the north and the Shias in the south," he said.
-
- A leadership structure could be the Iraqi National
Congress
(INC), he added. The INC has long been regarded as weak and divided, the
Financial Times Deutschland pointed out.
-
- Perle repeated the view expressed by American officials
at the conference that Washington was little concerned over European
opposition
to a war with Iraq. "If we have to choose between defending the US
without our allies and not defending ourselves with our allies we will
choose defence," said Perle.
-
- "If the European message is: we accept risks posed
by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and don't (want you) to do anything
about it because it makes us nervous, then the European influence will
be zero," Perle noted. He added: "Up until now the European
recommendations have not been helpful."
-
- The German foreign ministry on Monday warned against
a military strike against Iraq by the United States. "There are no
signs and no evidence that Iraq is involved in the terrorism that we have
been discussing for several months," said Deputy Foreign Minister
Ludger Volmer.
-
- The fight against terrorism should not be used to
legitimize
old enmities and settle old accounts, said Volmer.
-
- Both Volmer and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer are
members of the Greens party which serves as junior coalition partner to
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats.
-
- Asked about Volmer's comments a foreign ministry
spokeswoman,
Sabine Sparwasser, said President Bush had assured at talks in Washington
on Thursday that there were no plans to attack Iraq.
-
- GERMANY: The German foreign
ministry on Monday warned against a military strike against Iraq by the
United States. "There are no signs and no evidence that Iraq is
involved
in the terrorism that we have been discussing for several months,"
said Ludger Volmer, Assistant Secretary at the Foreign Ministry, on a
morning TV programme.
-
- The fight against terrorism should not be used to
legitimise
old enmities and settle old accounts, said Volmer.
-
- Both Volmer and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer are
members of the Greens party.-dpa
-
- http://www.dawn.com
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