About 100 people gathered in front of the Eugene Federal Building on Monday to protest the looming war with Iraq. Student reaction has been mixed.
WASHINGTON — President Bush marked Veterans Day on Monday by vowing to “commit the full force and might” of U.S. military forces to compel Iraqi compliance with U.N. demands for disarmament.
Bush issued his threat at ceremonies at the White House and Arlington National Cemetery as the Iraqi parliament opened debate on the U.N. Security Council requirement.
The U.N. Security Council gave Baghdad seven days to accept U.N. terms — or by Friday. Iraq then has until Dec. 8 to furnish a complete inventory of prohibited programs for chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and until Dec. 23 to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors.
Iraqi lawmakers’ acceptance of the U.N. terms would give Hussein a face-saving way to accept the U.N. demand by enabling him to claim that he was merely abiding by the will of representatives of the Iraqi people. Hussein’s hand-picked Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council makes the final call.
Bush highlighted his readiness to back up U.N. demands with U.S.-led military action, after winning U.N. Security Council support for the crackdown he had sought since Sept. 12.
“The dictator of Iraq will fully disarm — or the United States will lead a coalition and disarm him,” Bush told veterans, officials and family members marking Veterans Day in a blustery rain at Arlington National Cemetery.
Bush reiterated in his remarks on Monday that Iraqi defiance of U.N.-imposed restrictions on weapons of mass destruction raised the possibility that Hussein might hand off mass-casualty weapons to operatives from the al-Qaida
terrorist network, enabling Osama bin Laden to escalate his terrorist campaign against the United States “a thousand times over.”
“The time to confront this threat is before it arrives — not the day after,” Bush declared.
Neither Bush nor other administration officials have produced evidence of any such link between Hussein and bin Laden.
Bush spoke a day after senior U.S. officials leaked word that the president had approved tentative Pentagon plans to invade Iraq with up to 250,000 troops if Baghdad failed to comply with U.N. terms for disarmament.
It was not clear whether Bush’s threats and leaked blueprints of war plans operations were designed to sharpen the pressure on Baghdad to comply with U.N. Security Council demands or to alert the American people to the possibility of war.
The U.N. Security Council resolution — adopted Friday — offered Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations” by accepting return of U.N. weapons inspectors to conduct “immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted” inspections anywhere at any time accompanied by “sufficient U.N. security guards.”
Officials in Iraq angrily condemned the U.N. demand as the Iraqi parliament prepared for a possible vote as early as Tuesday on whether to comply.