Veterans for Common Sense

The administration’s comments, led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, apparently came in response to a Russian government statement earlier yesterday that enforcement of the no-fly zones is hampering negotiations for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, an assertion that Rumsfeld called ”nonsensical.”

”With each missile fired at our air crews, Iraq expresses its contempt for the UN resolutions, a fact that must be kept in mind as their latest inspection offers are evaluated,” Rumsfeld said at a briefing where the Pentagon showed grainy videotape of what were said to be Iraqi antiaircraft missile batteries firing at allied aircraft.

Rumsfeld said that Iraqis have fired on planes enforcing the no-fly zones 67 times since Iraq on Sept. 16 offered to allow weapons inspectors to return. He said that the 67 attacks represented an increase, but a Pentagon press officer said that the Defense Department tracked the frequency of antiaircraft attacks over similar periods and that the figure was meant to show continued Iraqi intransigence.

The defense secretary’s comments came as Congress prepared to begin considering a resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against Iraq, a debate that could commence as early as tomorrow in the Senate. That debate will be informed by a new Congressional Budget Office report saying that even a quick war in Iraq could cost at least $22 billion.

Rumsfeld described the no-fly zones as ”implementing … relevant UN Security Council resolutions,” but there is disagreement about the basis for the flight restrictions. While the United States and its allies established the southern zone in 1992 and the northern one in 1997 to enforce UN resolutions calling on that country not to oppress its minorities and not to menace its neighbors, the United Nations Security Council never formally authorized the actions.

”There has never been a consensus in the Security Council about the status of the no-fly zones,” a UN official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ”There are two points of view in the Security Council. One led by, but not exclusive to, Russia has pointed out that there’s no explicit mention of the no-fly zones in any security council resolution.” The other point of view, held by the United States and Britain, is that the no-fly zones are necessary to support the resolutions. The Iraqi government has never recognized the legitimacy of the zones.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a new statement criticizing the zones and recent air attacks that the Pentagon has said were made to enforce them.

”Anglo-American bombing raids in `no-fly zones’ not only deepen the complicated atmosphere around Iraq but create obstacles in the search for a political-diplomatic settlement of the Iraq question,” the Russian statement said.

Rumsfeld responded that the Russians had it backward. ”It’s the shooting at the airplanes that cause[s] the response,” he said.

Thus far in 2002, there have been 406 incidents of provocative action – attacks on coalition aircraft or Iraqi jets violating the airspace – in the no-fly zones, according to Rumsfeld. No coalition planes have been shot down, according to the Pentagon.

Rumsfeld announced last month that the United States had shifted its strategy in responding to such provocations. Instead of striking specific targets that attacked coalition aircraft, the United States and Britain have systematically tried to destroy Iraq’s air defense system, which is one of the more sophisticated in the world. Asked yesterday how much the defenses have been degraded, he said, ”Not enough.”

Meanwhile, negotiation continued on the wording of a congressional resolution on Iraq. With staffers at the White House scheduled to discuss the issue tomorrow, Senate majority leader Thomas Daschle’s office said the Senate would not begin to debate a resolution until at least then.

Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who last week spoke out against using military action until all diplomatic efforts have failed, is trying to set up a meeting of Democratic senators to craft a unified proposal. A number of Republicans and Democrats have expressed reservations about the broad language contained in the Bush draft resolution.

Some lawmakers want to require the administration to consult with Congress more frequently than the once every 90 days that Bush agreed to in the latest draft his administration has released. Others want to explicitly limit where Bush would be authorized to take military action, and still others have demanded that Bush consult more with the United Nations before launching strikes.

Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, made it clear that he would vote against a resolution that did not require more consultation with Congress.

”My allegiances and responsibilities as a United States senator are not to the president of the United States or the party that I happen to belong to,” Hagel said in a speech in front of the National Press Club. ”My responsibilities are to the people who sent me to Congress and the people of this country.”

The Congressional Budget Office told lawmakers yesterday it would cost $9 billion to $13 billion just to deploy US troops in any war with Iraq. Fighting could run $6 billion to $9 billion a month, and it would cost another $5 billion to $7 billion to return the troops to their home bases at the end of any hostilities.

Further, the additional cost of occupying Iraq after a war would run from $1 billion to $4 billion a month, not including funding of reconstruction work or humanitarian aid, the CBO said.

The figures were based on two options, one calling for heavy use of ground troops, which would be more costly, and another relying more on air power. The options do not include the possibility that Iraq or other nations in the region would use chemical or biological weapons.

The CBO figures are lower than previous $100 billion to $200 billion White House estimates.

Wayne Washington and Sue Kirchhoff of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Robert Schlesinger can be reached at schlesinger@globe.com

This story ran on page A22 of the Boston Globe on 10/1/2002.

© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

The meeting, called by Bush late yesterday, would tee up debate expected to begin in the Senate as soon as tomorrow afternoon on whether to authorize the use of military force to disarm and dislodge Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The House plans to begin debate on a resolution next week.

Further outlines of the debate took shape yesterday, with congressional researchers estimating that it could cost the United States as much as $13 billion to deploy its forces to the Persian Gulf and as much as $9 billion monthly to wage war against Iraq. The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that if a war toppled Saddam, the United States would then spend between $1 billion and $4 billion a month to occupy Iraq. The current war in Afghanistan is costing about $2 billion a month.

It also could cost as much as $7 billion to return U.S. forces and equipment home, plus as much as $4 billion per month for a postwar occupation force, Congress’ budget analysts said.

Key senators from both parties suggested specific resolution language that would give Bush broad leeway in deciding whether to attack.

Bush has asked Congress to approve a resolution authorizing the use of all necessary means, including military attacks, to confront Saddam and his alleged efforts to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Resolution language proposed jointly by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., and ranking member Richard Lugar, R-Ind., would allow Bush to use force — even without U.N. support — if he determined that Iraq’s weapons program posed a threat “so grave that the use of force is necessary.”

The United States and Britain also are preparing to circulate among U.N. Security Council members the draft of a tough resolution that would require Saddam to disarm or face military strikes. At least two veto-holding Security Council members — Russia and France — are opposed to a resolution authorizing military attacks against Iraq.

France has suggested a resolution requiring only that Saddam submit to tough new U.N. weapons inspections. If that fails, then the Security Council would debate a second resolution calling for the use of force, under the French plan.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has rejected that approach.

“There have to be consequences,” Powell said yesterday on PBS’ “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” program. “We’re going to argue and fight for that position.”

Meanwhile, the administration dismissed Russian charges that U.S. and British attacks on Iraqi air defenses were creating “obstacles” in diplomatic efforts to avert war.

U.S. and British pilots patrolling the skies over Iraq fire only in self-defense, countered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who shrugged off the Russian charges as “nonsensical.”

Iraqis have fired on U.S. and British pilots 406 times this year, said Rumsfeld, who showed video tapes yesterday of Iraqi anti-aircraft fire aimed at U.S. F-16s and a surface-to-air missile fired at a U.S. unmanned reconnaissance plane. The incidents took place a year or more ago.

The UN wants to agree a timetable with Baghdad under which the inspectors can return and resume their work.

Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix is confident the two sides will reach an agreement.

In Vienna, Mr Blix said he expected his team to have unlimited access when they return to Iraq after an absence of almost four years.

Sticking point

When asked if there would be any limitations on the sites open to inspectors, Mr Blix said: “No, not that I’m aware of.”

Saddam Hussein’s palaces are expected to be a sticking point in the two-day talks.

But Mr Blix said he did not expect that the palaces would be closed to the UN teams.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is holding a separate meeting.

Unlimited

Members are considering a tough new resolution threatening Saddam with war unless the inspections go ahead.

The current version of the draft would give Saddam Hussein a week to accept unlimited weapons inspections.

China, France and Russia have all expressed concern over such a move.

”They [Iraqi officials] said they would allow us to go look anywhere we wanted,” Representative James McDermott, Democrat of Washington, said on ABC’s ”This Week.” ”And until they don’t do that, there is no need to do this coercive stuff where you bring in helicopters and armed people and storm buildings.”

Republicans dismissed the reports. Saddam Hussein is ”not going to allow them back in, because he has these weapons and materials and laboratories and he isn’t about to give them up,” Senator John S. McCain, Republican of Arizona, said on CNN’s ”Late Edition.”

The remarks represent a prelude to what is expected to be an impassioned debate this week on a congressional resolution allowing President Bush to use force against Iraq.

McDermott was accompanied to Iraq by Representatives David Bonior of Michigan and Michael Thompson of California. He suggested Bush was trying to provoke a war with Iraq, and said the president might ”mislead” the American people on the extent of the threat from Iraq to get his way.

Those remarks drew a speedy and angry rebuke from Republican Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma, who accused McDermott and Bonior of being ”spokespeople for the Iraqi government.”

In Washington, 2,500 antiwar demonstrators marched up Embassy Row to Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence to protest the buildup toward a war.

”Demand a Regime Change in Washington,” said one protester’s sign; others asked, ”Why Now?”

”I’m scared to death what’s going on today – let’s kill this one, let’s kill that one,” said Esta Nette, 82, who traveled from Spotswood, N.J., for the march. ”I’ve lived through so many periods of turmoil, and I don’t think I was ever as scared as I am now.”

McDermott, Bonior, and Thompson met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. The US lawmakers said the international community should first exhaust diplomatic efforts before using military force, a view held by some Democrats on Capitol Hill.

”Military options will only take us away from the real task at hand, which is to pursue Al Qaeda. And it will divide our coalition,” Bonior said. ”It will create a more fragile and delicate problem around the world, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but potentially in Indonesia and other places around the world.

`’We don’t need another war in the Middle East,” he said. ”We need to pursue, as hard as we can, all avenues to solve this diplomatically.”

McDermott would not say whether he would advocate force if the Iraqis did not comply with weapons inspections.

”But you don’t start out by putting the gun to their head and saying, `We’re going to shoot you if you blink.’ And that’s really … what we’re doing here,” McDermott said.

The United States and Great Britain have been drafting a UN resolution that would require Iraq to admit weapons inspectors within seven days of passage and to disclose weapons and weapons programs within the following 23 days. The resolution would also empower the inspectors to visit Hussein’s presidential palaces, not mentioned in previous resolutions, and to declare ”no-drive” zones in addition to existing ”no-fly” zones.

If these conditions are not met, the resolution warns of military action. The Iraqi government heatedly rejected the idea on Saturday, and Aziz warned of a ”fierce war” if Iraq is attacked.

Iraq agreed not to develop weapons of mass destruction as part of the cease-fire pact after the 1991 Gulf War. Weapons inspectors were pulled out in December 1998 after complaints that the Iraqis were not cooperating.

Many Democratic and Republican lawmakers agree with the Bush administration that Hussein is not likely to begin cooperating now. But some Democrats say it is better to make weapons inspections the priority, turning to force only as a last resort. This approach, its advocates say, will help win the support of US allies that so far have been skittish about a preemptive attack on Iraq.

The Bush administration recently claimed a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, a charge greeted with skepticism by Democrats and Republicans who have been briefed by intelligence and defense officials.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she is still not convinced of an imminent threat from Iraq, and is ”not entirely sure” of a link to Al Qaeda.

”You have to ask the question, `what if you’re wrong?”’ countered Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, as the two colleagues faced off on CNN’s ”Late Edition.”

McDermott went further, saying: ”It would not surprise me if they came up with some information that is not provable, and they’ve shifted. First they said it was Al Qaeda, then they said it was weapons of mass destruction. Now they’re going back and saying it’s Al Qaeda again.

”I think the president would mislead the American people,” McDermott said.

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 9/30/2002.

© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

Instead, our president seems single-mindedly obsessed with attacking Iraq. For months the Bush war team has been talking up taking out Saddam and sneaking so many war toys into places like Qatar and Kuwait that it’s a wonder our desert launching pads haven’t already sunk from the weight of our pre-positioned gear and ammo.

So far, the emir of Kuwait has been picking up the tab for the American muscle deployed outside of his palace that lets him sleep at night without worrying about Iraqi tanks roaring through his front gate, as they did in 1990. But probably a key reason President Bush is so keen on pressing Congress to sanction his unrelenting march to battle is because thousands more armored vehicles and tens of thousands of warriors are already on the move.

Since it will soon be impossible to hide the buildup or cost, Bush clearly needs congressional consensus before the boys, bombs and bullets become the lead story on prime-time television.

Now it looks as though Congress is about to give Bush the green light for his shootout with Saddam rather than standing tall and insisting that United Nations weapons inspectors get another go at defanging the monster.

Almost 40 years ago, Congress kowtowed to another president from Texas and approved the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution – based on the repeated lies of Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara that Red patrol boats had attacked U.S. warships on a supposedly routine mission off North Vietnam, which the senior admiral in the Pacific had predicted months before would provoke exactly this type of response and result in an escalation of the Vietnam War.

Only Sens. Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska stood tall and voted “nay.” When Morse chillingly predicted we’d lose the war and LBJ would go down in flames, most members of Congress responded that they were patriotically backing the president in a time of crisis.

Before Congress blinks again, rubber-stamping one of the few wars in our country’s history in which we’ve fired the first shot, the members should visit the Vietnam Memorial and read every name aloud on that black wall before blindly accepting their party machines’ go-along-to-get-along directives. They should ask themselves: “Do I want to be remembered as a William Fulbright – who pushed LBJ’s bad resolution through the Senate, knowing all the while that he was repeating McNamara’s spin – or as a Morse or Gruening?

They should also match what the ordinary folks who elected them are saying against the national polls’ war chanty, “Let’s Push With Bush Into Baghdad.” Last week I visited four states, and all of the hundreds of average Joes and Janes I spoke with were for U.N. inspectors returning and our tightening the choke leash on Iraq enough that nothing gets in or out without going through a U.S.-manned checkpoint.

A Vietnam combat Marine told me: “Certainly Saddam is a tyrant and a threat to his neighbors. But so are the leaders of Syria, Iran, North Korea and, for that matter, Pakistan. All of our comrades who died in Vietnam and those of us who vowed ‘never again’ will now again watch another generation march off to war without the approval of the American people.”

“Who’ll pay for it?” asks another citizen. “We all know it’ll be our kids. They’re the ones who will pay, as it has been since the Revolutionary War. Those who reap the rewards are of a different category.”

Congressmen and congresswomen, which category are you? Will you vote for your own political future or the future of our country and its current generation of defenders? Will you challenge the rush to war along with Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who said last week that giving Bush the same broad, unchecked authority Congress gave LBJ is tantamount to allowing him to start a war and saying, “Don’t bother me, I’ll read about it in the newspapers”?

http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth’s home page. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. Look for his new book, “Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts,” (Rugged Land LLC, New York City).

© 2002 David H. Hackworth

“Many thinking people are questioning this war,” said Rita Clark, 70, a grandmother who said she was originally from Nicaragua. Clark, who has arthritis, said she wasn’t sure if she could complete the long walk to Cheney’s house.

“I don’t know if I can get that far, but I have to do this for my children and my grandchildren,” she said.

Protesters, some holding signs that said “No Blood for Oil,” blamed Cheney for pushing the nation toward war. Police estimated about 2,500 people turned out for the peaceful event.

Demonstrator threats to shut down the nation’s capital and disrupt meetings of world financial leaders during the weekend fell flat, but protest organizers contended their goals were met.

Needed attention was drawn, they said, to those seeking more money for global AIDS research and calling for changes in world economic policies.

“It’s been a highly successful couple of days,” said David Levy, a protest organizer with the Mobilization for Global Justice. Levy was the only demonstrator to show up for a scheduled Sunday morning news conference to evaluate the weekend of demonstrations.

Police had prepared for as many as 20,000 demonstrators. During the largest event, on Saturday, several thousand protesters filled five city blocks as they shouted opposition to policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which were holding their annual meetings.

Levy said the anti-globalization movement has drawn public scrutiny to the policies of those financial institutions, which demonstrators say harm the environment and worsen conditions for the poor in underdeveloped countries.

“No, we didn’t change the state of the global economy,” said Zoe Baldwin, 21, a college senior from Garfield, N.J. “The main purpose for most of these demonstrations, it’s basically a huge outreach tool.”

Meetings of global financial institutions have been a magnet to violence-scarred protests since 1999, when anti-globalization protesters clashed with police in Seattle. In April 2000, Washington police arrested about 1,300 people during demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank.

Last year’s fall meeting of finance officials was canceled after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, so protesters called off their plans. Many held anti-war demonstrations instead.

Protests in Washington during the April meetings were peaceful and focused on issues ranging from the war against terrorism to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The World Bank and IMF scaled back this year’s September meeting from a week to two days to trim security costs. The finance ministers return to Washington in the spring, but next year’s larger annual fall meeting is to be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Demonstrators had threatened to shut down the city Friday by blocking traffic with a march, a mass bike ride and other actions to protest war and capitalism. Disruptions were minimal, although several clashes with police occurred, and windows were broken at a downtown Citibank office. Police arrested 649 demonstrators.

Saturday’s demonstrations passed off with little trouble, except two men and two women who refused to identify themselves were arrested on illegal weapons charges near the end of the demonstrations. The four were found with smoke bombs and an explosive device that the police described as a coffee can filled with nails and explosive ordnance.

On the Net: Mobilization for Global Justice: http://www.globalizethis.org

District of Columbia police: http://www.mpdc.dc.gov

With us now is a guy who’s been following the story since the very beginning, Colonel David Hackworth, the author of the book Steal My Soldier’s Hearts.

All right. Now, you were down as a Newsweek correspondent in the war, in the Gulf War.

COL. DAVID HACKWORTH (RET.), U.S. ARMY: With a battalion that blew up a lot of these captured Iraqi munitions…

O’REILLY: And that was the problem.

HACKWORTH: … that had chemicals.

O’REILLY: They were blowing up Iraqi munitions, and all this stuff, gas and everything, was leaking out.

HACKWORTH: Went over 100,000 guys. Also, the desert was filled with depleted uranium munitions, about 300 million grams. One fraction of one gram will make you sick. And then…

O’REILLY: And what were the Iraqis using that uranium for?

HACKWORTH: That was our stuff. That was what we were knocking out their tanks with. So…

O’REILLY: OK, so we were using it…

HACKWORTH: Yes.

O’REILLY: … and then it was around…

HACKWORTH: It was all over the battlefield. Still is, Bill.

O’REILLY: OK. So…

HACKWORTH: It’s littering the battlefield.

O’REILLY: … what this boils down to is that the high-tech weapons that we use now can infect our own soldiers if they’re not properly protected.

HACKWORTH: Yes. We sent 700,000 guys out to the Gulf. Two hundred thousand now are sick. A hundred and fifty-nine thousand are receiving VA benefits. Almost 10,000 have died.

And this is an alarming figure. What bothers me is, we’re about to go back in the desert. Let’s make damn certain that the equipment that they have to protect and to detect, to detect weapons of mass destruction works. It didn’t work the first time around.

O’REILLY: But they didn’t know, though, did they? Now they know…

HACKWORTH: Well…

O’REILLY: … that the guy has sarin, and he’s got probably anthrax and everything else.

HACKWORTH: The bottom line is they — as the government does, the Pentagon and Veterans Administration was, “It’s all in your head,” deny, deny, deny.

O’REILLY: Why do they do that?

HACKWORTH: Well, it’s a matter of budget. They had to take care of the World War II vets, and they had to take care…

O’REILLY: Do you think they really knew and they lied on purpose.

HACKWORTH: I’m sure they didn’t want to realize that that number of folks went — when you think that 27 percent of the veterans that went out to that war are…

O’REILLY: Got some kind of infection.

HACKWORTH: It’s the biggest friendly fire incident in the history of human kind.

O’REILLY: Was it all friendly fire? Was there some gas on the Iraqi said that was used?

HACKWORTH: I don’t think there was any weapons of mass destruction on the part of the Iraqi stuff, except our stuff that — the stuff that we exploded.

Now a guy named Bob McMahon, who’s the president of Soldiers for the Truth, has written this up in some detail, and it’s on the Soldiers for the Truth, sftt.org., and so the readers can really get…

O’REILLY: Well, you know, it depresses me that our country — and we saw it in Vietnam with Agent Orange — simply will not tell the truth in many of these cases for economic reasons, political reasons, you know.

HACKWORTH: Well, George Bush has stepped up to the plate. Last year, he authorized a whole lot of money and said, “Let’s extend this thing and look into it.”

But this is a huge problem. We’ve got to take care of these veterans, and we’ve got to make damn certain we don’t create another generation of guys that are knocked out from bad stuff on the battlefield.

O’REILLY: Yes, because you’ve got — you’ve got to think that, if we’re going to go into Iraq and Saddam Hussein knows he’s toast, he’s going to unleash what he’s got. Whatever he’s got he’s going to throw at them, you know, and then he’s going to run away.

HACKWORTH: The problem is we’ve done this for years. We send guys off to war, they defend our country, we use them, abuse them, and then lose them, and that’s got to stop. We’ve got to take care of our veterans.

O’REILLY: OK, but that isn’t going to stop you from wanting Saddam Hussein removed, is it?

HACKWORTH: That’s a whole ‘nother issue. What I just want to make sure is damn…

O’REILLY: You have the equipment.

HACKWORTH: … that our troops are protected. It’s a damn shame what the Pentagon has done, what the VA has done, and what our press has done.

This story’s been around. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. No one has talked to me about it, except yourself.

Watch tomorrow, buddy. It will be all over the news.

O’REILLY: Yes, I know, I mean, but we’re — we’re looking for the truth here, and we want, as you said, our troops to be protected. We know they’re going to go in, and the last question I have for you is do we have the gear? Do they have the gear to protect them?

HACKWORTH: I’m not sure of that. I get mixed reports from the troops, and I — and what I’m about and what veterans of Gulf War I are about is to make we don’t make the mistakes of the history of…

O’REILLY: Yes, I can’t imagine that Cheney and Bush are going to allow that to happen without the gear being there. I just can’t imagine.

HACKWORTH: A million suits recently were determined to be ineffective.

O’REILLY: Right. All right, Colonel. Keep an eye on it for us, Colonel. Always a pleasure to see you. Thank you.

HACKWORTH: Will do, Buddy.

O’REILLY: Right.

While Washington had the firm backing of Britain, the other three veto-wielding Security Council members – France, China, and Russia – remained steadfast in their view that weapons inspections by UN specialists must first take place.

President Jacques Chirac of France resisted the diplomatic overtures from Washington and told President Bush by telephone that wide UN backing on disarming Iraq was the only way forward.

”The president [Chirac] also reiterated that France remains more than ever in favor of a two-step approach and that this is the view of the majority of the international community, given the seriousness of the decisions to be taken and their consequences,” Chirac spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said.

France’s approach involves two UN resolutions – one on readmitting arms inspectors and a second spelling out the consequences only if Baghdad does not let inspectors work freely.

Russia said any delay in the return of UN inspectors to Iraq would be ”unforgiveable,” while China said a military attack without UN backing would have ”incalculable consequences.”

In the latest of 32 strikes in Iraq’s southern no-fly zone this year, US and British jets bombed two Iraqi surface-to-air missile sites south of Baghdad after Iraqi forces fired on Western aircraft, a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday. Baghdad said the warplanes had attacked civilian targets in southern Iraq.

Three US congressmen arrived in Baghdad yesterday to plead for unfettered access for UN arms inspectors. Meanwhile, President Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, Uday, accused Washington of behaving like an ”arrogant cowboy” eyeing Iraqi oil reserves.

UN inspectors and Iraqi arms specialists meet next week in Vienna to discuss the return. The inspectors left Iraq in 1998. The United States and Britain say that the inspectors did not find Iraq’s entire weapons stock and that Baghdad has acquired new ones. Iraq says it has no weapons of mass destruction.

Washington sent Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman to Paris yesterday as part of its diplomatic drive.

Despite Chirac’s talks with his presidential advisers and with Foreign Ministry officials, his comments indicated France’s position had not changed.

Russia’s foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, said yesterday there was no clear proof in Britain’s dossier on Iraq published this week that Baghdad had chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.

Hussein agreed last week to permit UN inspectors without conditions. But the United States, whose declared policy is to seek the Iraqi leader’s removal, said he could not be trusted.

Yet Russia and France believe his sincerity must at least be tested with an attempt to undertake the inspections. ”It would now be an unforgiveable error to delay the dispatch of international monitors to Iraq,” Ivanov said.

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, speaking after meeting French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin in Paris, said Beijing wanted Baghdad to comply with UN disarmament resolutions without restriction. ”At the same time, we have to respect Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Zhu said. ”If the weapons inspections do not take place, if we do not have clear proof, and if we do not have the authorization of the Security Council, we cannot launch a military attack on Iraq – otherwise, there would be incalculable consequences.”

The US draft resolution would find Iraq in violation of previous UN resolutions, specify what it must do, and determine what consequences will flow from Iraq’s failure to take action.

No text is expected to be unveiled to the 15-nation Security Council until Monday.

This story ran on page A8 of the Boston Globe on 9/28/2002.

© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan declared Iraq rejected any extra procedures for weapons inspections as contained in the draft U.N. resolution envisaging a 30-day deadline for Baghdad to declare all its weapons of mass destruction programmes.

“The stance from the inspectors has been decided and any additional procedure that aims at harming Iraq won’t be accepted,” Ramadan told reporters.

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”.

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.

The proposed U.N. Security Council resolution, backed by Britain, would declare Iraq has already violated current U.N. demands and authorise military action if Baghdad fails to comply by accounting for its weapons of mass destruction.

The document, to be introduced early next week, has been submitted to Russia, China and France which, along with Britain and the United States, have veto power in the 15-nation Security Council. The other 10 elected council members have been told some of the main points.

France, Russia and China have severe reservations about what they regard as an almost inevitable slide into war, prompting a flurry of diplomatic activity.

“FIERCE WAR”

U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to French President Jacques Chirac by telephone on Friday, and the State Department’s undersecretary for political affairs, Marc Grossman, was en route to Moscow on Saturday after meeting French officials in Paris. Britain dispatched officials to Beijing.

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.

Iraq, according to the U.N. draft, has seven days after the resolution is adopted to accept all its demands, in what one diplomat called the “first test of good faith.”

After 30 days, Baghdad has to declare any remaining weapons in nuclear, chemical, biological or ballistic arms programmes or weapons materials it may possess.

Should Baghdad make “false statements or omissions” or otherwise fail to comply with the resolution, a U.N. member state can use “all necessary means” — a diplomatic term for military action — to ensure compliance, envoys said.