Bush: Saddam will destroy missiles

There were indications from Baghdad tonight that Saddam Hussein is prepared to obey UN instructions and destroy his al Samoud missiles.

But President Bush says it will just be another ploy by the Iraqi leader in his cat-and-mouse game.

The Egyptian Middle East News Agency reported that Iraq was about announce that it would comply with a UN order by the weekend.

The agency quoted unidentified sources in Baghdad as saying the step was intended to deprive Washington of an excuse for war.

An Iraqi official said later it will give its response to the UN Security Council by letter within the next two days.

Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix sent his top deputy, Demetrius Perricos, to Baghdad today to discuss “the pace of the destruction” of the missiles.

Blix has given Iraq until Saturday to destroy the missiles which exceed the 93 mile flight limit imposed by the UN.

“I predict that Iraq will indeed begin to destroy its al-Samoud missiles beginning March 1,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

“But this is easily predictable. It’s part of the game-playing that Iraq has done in the past. They take off a few inches from the tip of their iceberg and leave the mass underwater where it can do the most damage,” he said.

President George Bush said he was closely watching the discussions over the future of the missiles.

“The discussion about these rockets is part of his campaign of deception,” Bush said of Saddam.

“See, he’ll say, ‘I’m not going to destroy the rockets,’ and then he’ll have a change of mind this weekend and destroy the rockets and say, ‘I’ve disarmed’.”

“The rockets are just the tip of the iceberg. The only question at hand is total, complete disarmament, which he is refusing to do,” Bush said.

Earlier, Bush argued in a nationally televised address that removing Saddam from Iraq would help bring peace to the Middle East and inspire the Arab world to embrace democracy.

The Security Council began a first round of consultations today on a new US backed resolution for war with Iraq as Washington’s quest for support appeared to be picking up steam with several undecided council members.

As discussions were getting underway, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s office was reviewing a 17 page report from Blix detailing the work of his staff in Iraq over the past three months.

Blix said that Iraq still has not committed to disarming but he appeared to push for continued weapons inspections as a peaceful way to disarm Saddam Hussein.

The 15 member Security Council will also discuss behind closed doors today a French-Russian-German paper aiming to stave off war and prolong inspections at least until July 1.

There were new signs from Iraq that war was near: US intelligence has detected Saddam moving some elite army troops into new positions.

In recent days, trucks have been sent to the north to pick up members of his Republican Guard and reposition them around Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, 100 miles north of Baghdad, the capital, defence officials said .

Travellers today saw dozens of tanks being transported by truck from the northern city of Mosul to the Tikrit area.

Near Tikrit, both tanks and anti-aircraft guns were dug in along a long string of deep trenches, only their turrets poking out.

Dozens of armoured personnel carriers rumbled both ways along the route.

Saddam, his son Qusai, the defence minister and the minister of military industries all met with fighters and military researchers, the official Iraqi News Agency said.

The fighters and researchers told the president they wouldn’t let him down, it said.

There was some evidence today that Bush was gaining ground for military action, including signals that Mexico had changed its strong anti-war stance and was now preparing to back the US- British driven resolution.

But there were also signs that some undecided council countries, such as Chile, were pushing for a Canadian plan aimed at reconciling bitter differences between the US plan and the French-led proposal.

Washington has rejected the Canadian ideas, which were aimed at giving Iraq until the end of March to complete a list of disarmament tasks that inspectors are compiling.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the proposal “only procrastinates on a decision we all should be prepared to take.”

Turkey’s ruling party today delayed a crucial vote on allowing in more than 60,000 US troops to open a northern front against Iraq as dissent remained within the party over whether to back the deployment.

Parliament had been expected to vote on the deployment today, but the Justice and Development party asked parliament to postpone the debate to Saturday. MPs approved the request.

War in Iraq is very unpopular among Turks and many Justice MPs have said they oppose any Turkish participation in an attack.