Overseas News
Britain to call up reservists for possible war
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Britain prepared Tuesday to call up thousands of army reservists for a possible war against Iraq, as International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed ElBaradei said UN arms inspectors still needed "a few months" to complete their work.
Meanwhile the inspectors used helicopters for the first time as they expanded their hunt for the alleged weapons of mass destruction which Baghdad denies possessing.
British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon was to make a statement to parliament detailing further troop deployments to the Gulf, including the mobilisation of thousands of reservists, media reports said.
At the same time, Prime Minister Tony Blair was to tell 150 senior British ambassadors and diplomats that if the world does not take a stand on weapons of mass destruction, "we will rue the consequences of our weakness."
Britain has vowed to join any US-led coalition
to confront Baghdad over its alleged weapons programs, and along
with the United States is sending troops to the Gulf in anticipation
of a possible war.
Its aircraft carrier Ark Royal will sail for the region Saturday,
London's defense ministry announced, without confirming the number
of aircraft or personnel on board.
The showpiece carrier, which mainly transports Sea Harrier fighter jets, will join the destroyer Cardiff already in the Gulf, the spokeswoman said.
But key US ally Saudi Arabia said it would consider the evidence and its national interests before taking part in a war on Iraq even if it is declared by the United Nations.
Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters during a weekly briefing that if the United States asked Riyadh to take part, "we will not join."
"If the United Nations asked Saudi Arabia to join, depending on the material breach that they should show and prove, Saudi Arabia will decide in accordance with its national interests," the minister said.
In Paris, President Jacques Chirac reminded French armed forces in a traditional New Year's greeting to be prepared for "all eventualities", hinting at the possibility of a war.
"We must pay attention to how Iraq
fulfils Resolution 1441 of the United Nations Security Council,"
he said.
Amid the troop deployments, arms inspections continued in earnest
but ElBaradei said inspectors still need "a few months"
to complete their work and that it was "too early to come
to a conclusion."
In an interview with CNN, ElBaradei noted that inspectors so far "haven't seen a smoking gun, but we still have a lot of work to do before we come to the conclusion that Iraq is clean."
He said that by January 27, as required under the UN resolution, "we will have a status report, but not a complete report or a final report."
"I've been saying for a number of weeks now that the international community should bear with us," ElBaradei told the ABC channel.
"An inspection takes time," he said. "If we can disarm Iraq through inspection and avoid a war, I think that would be in everybody's interests."
China also reiterated Tuesday its support for a diplomatic UN-led solution to the Iraq crisis.
"We are in favor of political and diplomatic means to solve the Iraqi question," foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said.
Zhang urged the UN Security Council, on which China is a veto-wielding permanent member, to "listen first to the result of the inspection by the UN agencies in Iraq before making a conclusion."
A dozen experts flew early Tuesday from Baghdad to a phosphate plant near al-Qaim, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west and close to the border with Syria, an AFP photographer reported.
The team flew aboard three white-painted
"UN"-marked helicopters, escorted by two Iraqi helicopters.
Wearing protective clothes and masks, they began checking the
factory, which had already been visited on December 10, when UN
spokesman Hiro Ueki said it was involved in processing uranium
before the 1991 Gulf War.
The inspectors of the IAEA, which checks for nuclear programmes, and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which is seeking evidence of biological and chemical weapons, have six helicopters, according to Ueki.
They will use them both to travel across the country and carry out aerial inspections.
Meanwhile, Turkish newspapers said Tuesday that in the event of a war in Iraq, the Turkish army wants to send 20,000 soldiers backed by armored vehicles into the north of the country to ensure the security of its border region.
The move would also discourage Iraqi Kurds which govern the country independently from Baghdad, from proclaiming their own breakaway state, the Radikal newspaper said.
Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, now visiting Iran, rejected any cooperation with Ankara, which fears an independent Kurdish state would give ideas to its own Jurdish minority, to allow its army to enter Iraq.
He was quoted on Tuesday as saying that Iraqi opposition groups would meet soon in Arbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, to plan for Saddam's eventual overthrow.
US President George W. Bush again charged Monday that Saddam was "a threat to the American people" but added that "he's got time and we continue to call upon Saddam Hussein to listen to what the world is saying."