- WASHINGTON, DC -- America
will not delay a war with Iraq until the autumn and is prepared to launch
military action against Saddam Hussein without further United Nations authorization,
a senior Bush administration adviser said yesterday.
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- Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy
Board and a hawk whose views carry considerable weight, rejected suggestions
from British ministers and senior Foreign Office officials that plans for
an early war should be put on hold.
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- Mr. Perle, who is close to Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S.
defense secretary, said he did not expect the UN Security Council to reach
agreement on the use of force but had little doubt that George W. Bush,
the U.S. president, would press ahead regardless and lead a coalition to
victory.
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- "I'm assuming that we will not get a consensus on
the Security Council but it may be possible to get it," he said.
"It would be a great mistake to become dependent on it and take the
view that we can't act separately.
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- Driving force behind U.S. foreign policy
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- "That would be an abrogation of the president's
responsibility."
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- Mr. Perle stressed that as an outside adviser he could
not speak for the Bush administration. But with Mr. Rumsfeld and his ally
Vice-President Dick Cheney, now the driving force behind U.S. foreign policy,
his pronouncements have taken on increasing importance.
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- Mr. Perle said inspectors would not find actual weapons
in the face of Iraqi concealment. "If that's the test, we're never
going to find a smoking gun," said Mr. Perle.
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- He criticized Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector,
for his handling of the inspections. He said inspectors had mainly visited
previously known sites.
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- Mr. Perle suggested that American patience with the UN
inspections process was limited and closely linked to the military timetable
that makes it very difficult to fight a war after March because of the
searing heat.
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- UN resolution useful in producing cover for invasion
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- He said: "If there's no change in Saddam's attitude
I think there'll be a reluctance to continue this without a clear indication
that our patience will be rewarded by a UN Security Council consensus.
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- "A consensus would be a useful thing, and I think
we'd be willing to wait a little longer to get it but not a long time."
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- Mr. Perle said America had been right to go to the UN
to seek Resolution 1441, passed unanimously in November, because it "produced
a consensus in support of significant demands," but the UN had only
a limited role in dealing with Saddam.
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- "The question now, of course, is whether the UN
having done that [passed 1441] will insist that its demands be met or revert
to its previous posture which was to pass resolutions but not take the
actions necessary to ensure compliance with them."
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- Claims moral justification for war
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- He expressed doubt that Tony Blair had asked or would
ask Mr. Bush to delay war until the autumn and accused those who sought
such a delay of being opposed to ousting Saddam in any event.
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- Mr. Perle said: "There are nations on the UN Security
Council against taking military action, so they will try to slow any movement
towards military action."
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- America and its allies, he insisted, already had the
legal and moral justification for war. "We might be acting without
a resolution from the UN authorizing it, but I think the administration
can make a strong case that Saddam's defiance of a variety of resolutions
passed previously could be understood to justify military action."
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