The US dismissed an Iraqi offer Monday to let weapons inspectors return there unconditionally, calling it a tactical move that did not change the Bush administration's desire to remove Saddam Hussein.
The White House released a written statement that called the offer "a tactical step by Iraq in hopes of avoiding strong UN Security Council action."
"As such, it is a tactic that will fail," spokesman Scott McClellan said in the statement.
"This is not a matter of inspections. It is about disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi regime's compliance with all other Security Council resolutions," McClellan said in Washington.
The administration still is demanding a decree from the United Nations that would make plain that the organization will enforce the 16 resolutions Saddam has broken, McClellan said. The statement did not mention the White House's previous insistence that Iraq allow inspectors to go anywhere in the country, at any time.
It demanded a "new, effective UN Security Council resolution that will actually deal with the threat Saddam Hussein poses to the Iraqi people, to the region and to the world."
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the U.N. Security Council is moving toward the U.S. position on Iraq, but France objected strongly to the Bush administration's insistence that Saddam must go.
As Powell consulted with council members, Secretary-General Kofi Annan, working with Iraqi and Arab League officials, came up with a letter pledging that Iraq would let U.N. weapons inspectors return unconditionally.
Annan credited President Bush for the Iraqi reversal of policy. He said the president has "galvanized the international community" with his speech last Thursday.
(China Daily September 17, 2002)
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