- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq,
threatening a "fierce war" if attacked, rejected on Saturday
a draft U.S.-proposed Security Council resolution requiring Baghdad to
comply with tough new arms inspection rules or face military action.
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- Iraq's defiant rejection came amid a U.S. and British
diplomatic campaign to persuade other permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council -- France, Russia and China -- to overcome grave concerns
and back the proposal designed to rid Iraq of any nuclear, biological or
chemical weapons.
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- Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Iraq would not
accept extra measures contained in the draft resolution, which gives Iraq
one week to accept demands to disarm and 30 days to declare all its weapons
of mass destruction programs.
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- "The stance from the inspectors has been decided
and any additional procedure that aims at harming Iraq won't be accepted,"
Ramadan told reporters.
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- Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz warned that the United
States would sustain huge losses if it attacked Iraq and that his country
would fight a "fierce war."
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- President Bush, whose avowed policy of "regime change"
in Iraq means toppling President Saddam Hussein, has pledged to act without
U.N. approval if necessary, and on Saturday urged action before it was
"too late."
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- "By then, the Iraqi dictator will have had the means
to terrorize and dominate the region, and each passing day could be the
one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX nerve gas or someday
a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group," Bush said.
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- Seeking to press the U.S. case, Undersecretary of State
for Political Affairs Marc Grossman met Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
in Moscow on Saturday, where he is likely to face the same resistance to
the draft resolution as he did in France.
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- Grossman appeared to make little headway in Paris on
Friday and Russian leaders have said Iraq's agreement to let U.N. arms
inspectors return is sufficient to avoid any use of force.
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- In a bid to persuade China, Britain has sent officials
to Beijing but itself faced protests at home. Waving anti-war banners and
chanting slogans against "Bomber Bush and Bomber Blair," tens
of thousands of Britons joined a big peace rally in London to oppose a
military strike on Iraq.
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- THREAT OF FORCE
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- Under threat of force, Washington wants radically to
change the ground rules for U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, demanding
access to any site and protecting inspectors with a security force, according
to those familiar with the U.N. draft.
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- The proposed U.N. Security Council resolution, backed
by Britain, would declare Iraq has already violated current U.N. demands
and authorize military action if Baghdad fails to comply by accounting
for its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
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- The document, to be introduced next week, has been submitted
to Russia, China and France, who all have grave reservations about what
they regard as an almost inevitable slide into war. Like Britain and the
United States, the three states have veto power in the 15-nation Security
Council.
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- A spokeswoman for President Jacques Chirac said France
remained committed to a plan for two resolutions -- one on readmitting
inspectors and a second providing for tough measures only if they encountered
difficulty.
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- Russian President Vladimir Putin says there is no need
for new U.N. Security Council resolutions and that all efforts must be
made to ensure the inspectors can quickly resume their checks for weapons
of mass destruction.
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- According to the U.S.-drafted resolution setting out
the seven-day and 30-day deadlines, any Iraqi "false statements or
omissions" or other failure to comply would mean a U.N. member state
can use "all necessary means" -- a diplomatic term for military
action -- to enforce acceptance, envoys said. Amid the U.S. claims of Iraqi
arms programs, Turkish paramilitary police seized more than 33 pounds of
weapons-grade uranium about 155 miles from the Iraqi border. Two men accused
of smuggling the material were detained, the state-run Anatolian news agency
said on Saturday.
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- Iraq's Aziz told a conference in Baghdad that his country
would fight any U.S.-led military action. "Any attack against Iraq
won't be an American picnic, rather a fierce war that would cost it (the
United States) loses that it hasn't seen for the last tens of years,"
he declared.
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- Ramadan dismissed as "lies" U.S. accusations
of links between his country and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, blamed by
Washington for the September 11 attacks by suicide hijackers last year
on U.S. targets that killed more than 3,000 people.
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- Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri arrived in Tehran on
Saturday for talks with top officials in Iran, which opposes any U.S.-led
military strike against Baghdad.
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