US sets sights on war in new year as it attacks Iraq report

THE United States is on course towards war for early next year after Washington declared Iraq in “material breach” of a UN disarmament resolution last night.

“There is no calendar deadline,” US Secretary of State Colin Powell said when asked what comes next.

But he cited “a practical limit to how much longer you can go down the road of non-cooperation....Iraq is well on its way to losing this last chance.”

Baghdad’s arms declaration “totally fails” to meet a UN Security Council resolution calling for an accurate, full and complete inventory of weapons, Mr Powell said.

He called Iraq’s 12,000-page declaration “a catalogue of recycled information and flagrant omissions.”

Delivering the Bush administration’s formal response to Baghdad’s arms declaration, Mr Powell said: “This is a new material breach on the part of Baghdad, following many violations over the past decade”.

Although Mr Powell suggested the US rejection of Iraq’s declaration was not an immediate trigger for war, he asserted: “The world will not wait forever.”

US President George W Bush plans this week to launch a diplomatic process that would push the prospects for military action into late January or February.

Mr Powell said the US intends to stay within the UN process. He also noted that UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, have until January 27 to make a formal report on the declaration to the UN council.

Administration officials said that date falls well within the optimal window for a winter attack on Iraq, and will likely be the point at which Mr Bush decides whether to go to war.

The administration plans to use the time until then to build a stronger case against Saddam, courting allies along the way. Mr Bush plans to address the matter today. As many as 50,000 US troops may be deployed in early January for duty in the Persian Gulf area. More than 50,000 US troops are already in the Gulf region.

The UN Security Council, in its unanimous November 8 resolution, ordered Iraq to come up with a “currently accurate, full and complete” inventory of its arms programmes.

“Our experts have found it to be anything but accurate, full or complete,” Mr Powell said.