Bush 'fed up' with Iraq
By Wolf Blitzer
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- For President Bush, the 12-year showdown with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has now entered the end game -- no more ifs, ands or buts. At a White House photo-op today, President Bush had this to say:
"He's not disarming. He is delaying. He's deceiving. He's asking for time. He's playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. This looks like a re-run of a bad movie. And I'm not interested in watching it."
His aides have launched a final full-scale public relations campaign to convince critics at home and abroad. It began with a detailed speech by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who says the Iraqis may have acknowledged in recent days they still had 16 empty chemical warheads, but pointed out discrepancies by asking, "Where are the other 29,984? Because that's how many empty chemical warheads the U.N. special commission estimated he had, and he's never accounted for."
Armitage says the Iraqis also have never accounted for 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas; 400 biological weapons; and 26,000 liters of anthrax, botulism, VX and sarin gas that the U.N. estimated the Iraqis still had at the end of 1998. "Some people may say there is no smoking gun, but there's nothing but smoke," the deputy secretary said.
But critics aren't buying that argument.
In a speech delivered at the National Press Club today, Sen. Edward Kennedy took a hard anti-war stance. "I continue to be convinced that this is the wrong war at the wrong time. The threat from Iraq is not imminent, and it will distract America from the two more immediate threats to our security -- the clear and present danger of terrorism and the crisis with North Korea."
Kennedy, who voted against the Senate resolution in October authorizing the President to take military action against Iraq, said the inspectors need more time. "If our goal is disarmament, we are likely to accomplish more by inspections than by war."
That's also the line the Bush administration is hearing from close allies, including France, which is threatening to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing war.
To that, Secretary of State Colin Powell offered this: "If the international community is aligned then I think it can be accomplished hopefully peacefully. If not peacefully then by force. But one way or another, Saddam Hussein must be disarmed."
