US likely to declare Iraq in violation of UN

The United States yesterday moved closer to declaring Iraq in violation of a UN disarmament resolution over its weapons disclosure but US officials said this would not be an immediate trigger for war.

The White House said Secretary of State Colin Powell and the US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, would issue Washington's response today to Iraq's arms disclosure, which the United States considers incomplete.

US officials said President George W. Bush was concerned by omissions and other problems in Iraq's declaration, which they said had failed to disclose Baghdad's suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes as required.

Powell told reporters he was not optimistic that Iraq would cooperate with demands that it disarm but that the United States would work through the UN Security Council on deciding what to do over the next few weeks.

Iraq denies it has any banned weapons programmes. Whether to find Iraq in "material breach" of its obligations - a possible harbinger of war - was being debated by Bush's top advisers. The president met his National Security Council team to discuss the issue yesterday, aides said.

The United States is building up a powerful military force in the Gulf region in case Bush, who has said he would like to see President Saddam Hussein ousted, decides to go to war.

"The president is concerned about Iraq's failure to list information in this document. The president is concerned with omissions in this document. The president is concerned with problems in this document," Fleischer said of Baghdad's arms declaration handed over on December 7.

He said Washington would "continue to pursue a very deliberative approach in dealing with this issue and the potential consequences of determinations about the Iraqi declaration."

But Fleischer said Iraq's arms declaration was "Saddam Hussein's last chance" to make a complete accounting of weapons programmes. A UN resolution adopted in November warns of "severe consequences" if Iraq does not fully comply with disarmament demands.

Bush refused to take questions on the matter from reporters during a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who Bush praised as a close US ally in the war against terrorism.

Powell and Negroponte were expected to announce the US position after chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix makes a presentation on the Iraqi declaration to the full 15-member UN Security Council today, the officials said. It was not immediately clear where they would make that presentation.

They were not expected to say the violation was an immediate trigger for war, the officials said. This would give UN weapons inspectors more time to hunt for weapons and allow Washington to continue to build an anti-Iraq coalition and put military forces in place.

One official said it was unlikely at this stage that they would use the phrase "material breach" while another said it was a "distinction without a difference".

Fleischer said the United States has the right under the resolution to declare Iraq in "material breach", but added that a "declaration of material breach in and of itself would not preclude the inspectors from continuing to do the job the Security Council has asked them to do."

The November 8 Security Council Resolution 1441 said that false statements or omissions in the Iraqi declaration, coupled with a failure to comply with inspections, would be a "further material breach" of Iraq's obligations, language that could lead to war.

Powell's comments, after a meeting with top European Union officials, suggested the United States did not for the moment intend to take any unilateral steps based on its conclusion that there are problems and omissions in Iraq's declaration.

"Our analysis of the Iraqi declaration to this point... shows problems with the declaration, gaps, omissions and all of this is troublesome," Powell said. "(From) my conversations with other permanent members of the Security Council, I sense that they also see deficiencies."

"We are not encouraged that they (the Iraqis) have gotten the message or will cooperate based on what we have seen so far in the declaration but we will stay within the UN process... and we will share our analysis of declaration with other members of the council and discuss how to move forward in the weeks ahead," he added.