US continues troop build-up

THE US has ordered thousands more troops to the Gulf, despite signs of European reluctance to rush to war with Iraq.

As the military build-up went ahead, British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged that the UN inspectors be given time to do their job. His spokesman said Mr Blair had told his cabinet: “January 27, whilst an important staging post, should not be regarded in any sense as a deadline.”

The Washington Post, however, quoted a senior US official as saying that, while the US believed the January 27 report would probably not provide a definitive trigger for war, “it is a very important day (marking) the beginning of a final phase”.

The Pentagon has ordered the deployment of 62,000 additional military forces since Friday and launched an e-mail campaign urging Iraqi civilian and military leaders to turn their backs on President Saddam Hussein.

Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix will meet representatives of EU member states, foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Foreign Relations Commissioner Chris Patten on Thursday. The meeting comes as concern mounts among many EU member states over US preparations for a possible attack on Iraq.

This will be Mr Blix’s first visit to Brussels since he took up his job as weapons inspector and it will be followed by a second visit on February 16 just before his final trip to Baghdad. He is due to make a final report to the UN Security Council on February 27.

While individual countries have been urging the US not to rush into war, a spokesperson said Mr Solana will not have a specific message for Mr Blix: “He can expect a message from the EU giving him full support. This is not a time for the EU to say they want anything from him.”

Mr Blix’s report to the Security Council last Thursday said UN weapons inspectors had not found a “smoking gun” but they were unhappy with the Iraq’s failure to prove it destroyed its stock of weapons of mass destruction. The US says Iraq must prove their stockpile has been destroyed and the burden of proof is on Iraq and not on the UN inspectors.

Defence officials said the US could be ready for war by mid- to late-February with a force exceeding 150,000 soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen. But European officials have spoken out against a rush to war on the basis of inconclusive weapons inspections, which resumed in late November after a four-year hiatus.

France, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, has insisted on an international mandate for military action, while Germany opposes attacking Iraq. Three of four French people oppose France taking part in any Iraq war, a survey in the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche showed.

European Commission President Romano Prodi and Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis spoke strongly against assuming war with Iraq was inevitable when they met in Athens on Friday. The Greeks have just taken over the EU’s six months rotating presidency. However, Brussels has already begun to make contingency plans to deal with the humanitarian situation that would result from war. There is no budget in mind as the amount of money needed would depend on the scale of destruction. However, Commission spokesperson Michael Curtis said between humanitarian aid needs and reconstruction, the aid needed would be massive.

Following the bombing in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the EU held donor conferences where countries pledged aid, and it could be expected similar steps would be taken for Iraq.

Mr Curtis said the situation in Iraq was already precarious and this year the EU will spend €15m funding water treatment and vaccination programmes for about 7 million people, mostly children, in the south and centre of the country which has been badly hit by UN sanctions imposed in the mid 1990’s.