US willing to go it alone, says Powell

AS the world waits for UN weapons inspectors to report to the Security Council today, the United States said it was willing to go it alone to topple Saddam Hussein.

Kicking off a week that could hasten or delay war to disarm Iraq, US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday sought to win over a cagey Europe for a possible assault on Baghdad.

He gave mixed reassurances that the Bush administration would be patient and consult its allies with warnings that time was short and the United States would not wait for ever. “Multi-lateralism cannot become an excuse for inaction,” Mr Powell told the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos.

“We are in no great rush to judgement today or tomorrow, but it is clear that time is running out.”

The UN inspectors report to the Security Council today on their hunt for banned Iraqi nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Baghdad denies having any. Chief arms inspector Hans Blix says Iraq has not filled holes in its arms declaration, is blocking confidential access to scientists and is balking at U-2 surveillance flights. Mr Blix has said that Iraq meets queries about data on anthrax, deadly VX nerve gas and Scud missiles with blunt denials, not evidence or documents to account for any missing material.

UN nuclear watchdog agency chief Mohamed El-Baradei will tell the council his teams have not proved Iraq is trying to develop atomic bombs, as the US suspects.

“It (El-Baradei’s report) won’t reveal any prohibited nuclear arms programme,” said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “If we were to find a smoking gun, we wouldn’t wait for an update report. We’d go straight to the Security Council.”

Iraq’s influential newspaper, Babel, warned the United States that invading troops would go home in body bags, while ordinary Iraqis said they expected war whatever the inspectors say.

Yesterday, teams from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the IAEA searched more sites in Iraq.

Mr Powell promised to work “patiently and deliberately” with US friends and allies, but added: “Let the Iraqi regime have no doubt, however. If it does not disarm peacefully at this juncture, it will be disarmed at the end of the road.

“We will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. We continue to reserve our sovereign right to take military action against Iraq alone or in a coalition of the willing.”

He added Iraq had “clear ties to terrorist groups including al-Qaida” and had made no strategic decision to obey last November’s UN disarmament resolution. However, Washington has provided no evidence for that assertion.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s King Abdullah said yesterday it would take a miracle to find a diplomatic solution to avert a war: “Unfortunately I believe that we’re now a bit too little, too late to see a way out, a diplomatic solution between Iraq and the international community,” the king told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.