Powell: 'Moment of truth' nears
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Colin Powell gestures while testifying Wednesday on Capitol Hill before the House International Relations Committee hearing.
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SPECIAL REPORT
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United Nations is fast approaching "the moment of truth" regarding Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday, adding that Saddam Hussein will disarm his country either peacefully or through war.
While addressing the House International Relations Committee, Powell challenged France and Germany, both of which have balked at the U.S. hard-line position toward Iraq, to decide if their containment policy is intended to get "Saddam Hussein off the hook with no disarmament."
On Friday, top U.N. weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei are to deliver their third report on the Iraq inspections to the Security Council. Many observers see it as a key date for diplomatic discussions over Iraq.
"I hope that in the days ahead, we will be able to rally the United Nations around the original resolution and whatever other resolution that might be necessary in order to satisfy the needs of other countries," the secretary said.
"We are reaching a moment of truth with respect to this resolution, and whether it meant anything or not," he said. "We are reaching a moment of truth with respect to the relevance of the United Nations Security Council to impose its will on a nation such as Iraq, which has ignored the will of the council for the last 12 years. And we are reaching a moment of truth as to whether or not this matter will resolve peacefully or be resolved by military conflict."
Security Council Resolution 1441, approved in November, gives Iraq a last opportunity to disarm voluntarily by cooperating with weapons inspectors. The inspectors so far have said Iraq is improving but not fully cooperating. Iraq says it is doing everything it can to cooperate.
France, Russia and Germany are among the strongest opponents of the U.S. position to disarm Saddam by force. They are proponents of further diplomacy to end the Iraq crisis and issued a joint declaration on Tuesday calling for U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq to be reinforced as part of an attempt to disarm the nation peacefully.
Russia and France are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- and have the power of vetoing new resolutions. Germany's ambassador is the current council president.
