Powell Takes U.S. Case on Iraq to Security Council

Powell Takes U.S. Case on Iraq to Security Council
By Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch – The Washington Post
Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the U.N. Security Council with satellite images, intercepted telephone conversations and information from Iraqi defectors in a bid to convince the American public and the world that new weapons inspections have failed to halt Iraq’s banned weapons programs and that the hour was approaching for a decision on confronting President Saddam Hussein with force.
Powell cited what he called an ”accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior” to charge that Iraq does not intend to comply with last year’s U.N. resolution giving Baghdad one last chance to disarm and to outline new alleged links between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
While inspections may continue for some weeks, Powell warned the council on Wednesday that the United Nations has little choice but to act in the face of such evidence of Iraqi behavior, in effect serving notice that the Bush administration has made up its mind and is ready to launch an invasion of Iraq with or without formal U.N. backing.
The day after Powell’s address, Bush said that Saddam Hussein is wasting his last chance to comply with international demands that he give up his weapons of mass destruction and warned that a ”last minute game of deception” with U.N. weapons inspectors would not avoid war In his nearly 90-minute address, Powell accused Iraq of constructing an elaborate deception scheme that enabled Iraqi officials to conceal programs to produce biological weapons in mobile trucks and trains, to build prohibited long range missiles and to construct unmanned aerial vehicles capable of spreading biological or chemical agents over vast tracts of territory.
Powell also detailed new evidence of apparent links between Iraq and affiliates of al-Qaeda. Powell noted that some of the ties may have a role in terrorist incidents in France, Britain, Spain and Russia–all Security Council members.
Powell’s statement appeared to generate new support for the Bush administration within Congress, even among critics of President Bush’s Iraq policy Overseas, the reaction was moremixed. Powell’s performance was widely praised, but many governments–including those of Security Council members France, Germany and Russia–said he made a case for enhanced inspections, not war. .
Nonetheless many European governments have supported the U.S. position including Britain, Italy, Spain, Denmark and Portugal, as well as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. On Wednesday, 10 more European governments, in the former communist east, jointly declared support for Washington.
In other developments:
—-The Turkish parliament authorized the United States to renovate several Turkish military bases and ports for use in a war against Iraq, the first step in an emerging decision to allow U.S. troops to use Turkish soil to open a northern front against Saddam Hussein.
—-The Pentagon issued formal deployment orders for the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, a critical component of its invasion force, and dispatched an additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, for a total of five. Although forces are still flowing into the region, and the 101st will not be ready to fight until early March, there are now 125,000 U.S. soldiers there.