With US military buildup in the Gulf in high gear and diplomacy making its case, the window for peace seems to be closing, writes Salah Hemeid Even before US Secretary of State Colin Powell was due to deliver his public statement to the Security Council on Wednesday, US officials described the presentation as strong evidence that Iraq is working to impede the inspectors and conceal prohibited weapons. As President George W Bush moves Americans closer to a military confrontation to force Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down, Powell's presentation could well mark a turning point in the Bush administration's efforts to convince the UN Security Council that military force is justified. Yet it is far from clear whether the Security Council will take Powell's statement as convincing evidence of Iraq's violations of its disarmament commitments, or of its ties with Al- Qa'eda, thus endorsing the Bush administration's plans for a military confrontation with Iraq. Baghdad said it expects Powell to present the UN Security Council with fabricated evidence alleging that the country possesses weapons of mass destruction. On Tuesday, a day before Powell's statement, Saddam categorically denied that Iraq possesses any weapons of mass destruction and said the United States was looking for a pretext to launch a war against his regime. "These weapons do not come in small pills that you can hide in your pocket. These are weapons of mass destruction and it is easy to work out if Iraq has them or not," Saddam said in an interview conducted by veteran British labour politician Tony Benn and aired by the London-based Arab Television. His deputy Taha Yassin Ramadan challenged Powell to make new evidence while Hossam Mohamed Amin, head of Iraq's weapons monitoring directorate and the chief liaison with UN weapons inspectors, accused the US government of planting photos to make its case that Iraq still has banned arms. The Iraqi stand is gaining fresh backing from key sceptics. French President Jacques Chirac remained steadfastly opposed to war against Iraq without giving UN weapons inspectors more time to do their work. Despite efforts by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to persuade France to support a second UN Security Council resolution authorising military force against Baghdad, the French leader continues to insist that UN weapons inspectors must be given the time and the means to do their work. The Pentagon, however, is on the move. A third US aircraft carrier has manoeuvered into striking range of Iraq, and a fourth will head there soon. The USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the Navy's newest Nimitz-class carriers with more than 5,000 sailors and naval aviators aboard, re-entered the Arabian Sea over the weekend. Meanwhile, a new war plan published in the Washington Post this Sunday revealed that the US army will unleash some 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first 48 hours of the opening air campaign, an effort intended to stagger and isolate the Iraqi military and quickly pave the way for a ground attack to topple a government in shock. Quoting Pentagon officials the paper said that the initial bombardment would use 10 times the number of precision-guided weapons fired in the first two days of the Gulf War of 1991, and the targets would be air defences, political and military headquarters, communications facilities and suspected chemical and biological delivery systems. The immediate goal would be to break the Iraqi army's will to fight, driving large numbers of troops to surrender or defect, offering them guarded sanctuary if they do, while cutting off the leadership in Baghdad in hopes of causing a rapid collapse of Saddam's government. The air war would be significant for what the targets will not be as much as for what they will be. Because the United States wants to help rebuild Iraq quickly after any conflict, the air campaign is intended to limit damage to Iraqi infrastructure and to minimise civilian casualties. The army's Third Infantry Division and a sizeable contingent of marines would be assigned to punch north from Kuwait, while a force spearheaded by the Fourth Infantry Division, whose tanks and armoured fighting vehicles are equipped with the service's most sophisticated digital communications and target-acquisition systems, would move south from Turkey. A large number of other army forces with an array of capabilities, including elements of the 82nd Airborne and 101st Airborne divisions, would be assigned special missions. About 100,000 American troops are now in the gulf region or nearby, a force that could grow to more than 175,000 by late February, officials said. This week, the buildup continued as Marine and Army equipment was loaded onto military cargo ships in Norfolk, Virginia; Beaumont and Corpus Christi, Texas; and San Diego and Wilmington, North Carolina. The military buildup and the diplomatic offensive echoed in the region. Arab leaders, worried that their countries will be adversely affected by the war, are reportedly planning to meet soon and plan to emerge from the summit with a call on Baghdad to cooperate with weapons inspectors. Arab diplomats told Al-Ahram Weekly that Arab leaders have been engaged in intensive consultations to arrange for a meeting before their annual summit scheduled in March in Bahrain. The diplomats said Arab governments also want to move the summit to Egypt. Bahrain said it has no objection moving the summit to Cairo. Arab League Secretary- General Amr Moussa said on Tuesday Arab foreign ministers will meet in Cairo mid-February to discuss the situation. Arab diplomatic sources, however, say Arab leaders are divided about whether to hold the summit before or after the 14 February UN chief weapons inspector's report to the UN Security Council on Iraq's compliance with disarmament resolutions. The Arab plan, the sources say, will suggest that Iraq should be given six more weeks to comply with UN demands it surrender weapons of mass destruction. It also calls on Iraq to cooperate fully with UN weapons inspectors. However, the suggested plan includes no offer of asylum to Saddam, an option the Arab media has speculated leaders might be considering as a peaceful way out. But in an apparent acknowledgment that war may be inevitable, the plan stipulates that Arabs should take "all necessary measures to deal with all the destructive consequences of war." In a related development, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou said in Beirut on Tuesday that an Arab-European delegation may be sent to Baghdad on a last-ditch mission to convince Saddam to cooperate with the United Nations so a war can be avoided.
