Powell says Iraq declaration 'riddled with deceptions'

UPDATE - 11.30am

WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Colin Powell Iraq's arms declaration was riddled with lies and omissions and predicted there would be no peaceful outcome if Baghdad continued its "dissembling."

The US official said Iraq was in "material breach" of a UN resolution calling for it to end its suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes -- using a term that could provide a legal justification for military action -- but he suggested any US decision on going to war was weeks away.

Powell spoke on Thursday (Friday NZT) after the top UN weapons inspector said he had found inconsistencies in the 12,000-page document released by Iraq under UN Security Council resolution 1441, which demands that Baghdad end its weapons of mass destruction programmes or face "serious consequences" likely to include war.

If embraced by the Security Council, the term "material breach" could provide a legal justification for war but neither the weapons inspector, Hans Blix, nor the council's other 14 members chose to use the phrase, suggesting Washington has some way to go to persuade the world to take military action.

Speaking to reporters, Powell said Iraq had failed to fully disclose details of its weapons programmes and argued that this had brought it closer to facing serious consequences. But he said Washington would work with the UN inspectors and consult allies over the next few weeks as it decides how to proceed.

"The Iraqi declaration ... totally fails to meet the resolution's requirements," Powell told reporters. "Iraq's response is a catalogue of recycled information and flagrant omissions ... These are material omissions that in our view constitute another material breach."

Iraq denies US accusations that it has programmes to make biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and it has accused the United States of seeking a pretext to launch a war.

Powell said: "There is no question that Iraq continues its pattern of noncooperation, its pattern of deception, its pattern of dissembling, its pattern of lying, and if that is going to be the way they continue through the weeks ahead, then we're not going to find a peaceful solution to this problem."

"There is no calendar deadline, but obviously there is a practical limit to how much longer you can just go down the road of noncooperation and how much time the inspectors can be given," he added. "This situation cannot continue."

In the meantime, Powell said "the coming weeks" should include more study of the Iraqi declaration, intensified work by UN inspectors inside Iraq as well as greater efforts by them to interview Iraqi arms scientists outside the country.

Among the omissions that Powell cited in the Iraqi document were its failure to address suspected stockpiles of anthrax, botulin toxin, chemicals that are the building blocks for mustard gas, sarin gas and VX nerve gas as well as information about suspected Iraqi attempts to obtain aluminum tubes that could be used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapons programme.

"Most brazenly of all, the Iraqi declaration denies the existence of any prohibited weapons programmes at all," Powell said, calling the Iraqi declaration a "new lie."

Security Council resolution 1441, which gave Iraq a last chance to disarm and was adopted unanimously on November 8, has two requirements before the council can declare a material breach. It said false statements or omissions in the Iraqi declaration had to be coupled with a failure to comply with inspections.

A senior US official described the decision to use the phrase as a turning point, saying Washington had entered a "new phase" and the next milestone would be January 27, the date by which UN inspectors must report to the Security Council.

US officials and UN diplomats said they hoped to get briefed earlier, possibly in the first 10 days of January.

Despite indications from the White House that the Bush administration will be patient, letting UN arms inspections run their course in coming weeks, the US military is forging ahead with a build-up that could have more than 100,000 troops in the Gulf region in January or February.

US officials told Reuters 50,000 ground troops were being notified to be ready to move there early next year if needed. There are now 60,000 US troops in the region, more than half Navy and Air Force personnel aboard aircraft carriers and at air bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.

Much of the new deployment would be armoured troops who would use hundreds of tanks and other equipment from radios to food rations stockpiled in the Gulf since the 1991 Gulf War.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: Iraq