WASHINGTON — The United States will have “zero tolerance” for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein if he fails to cooperate with tough new weapons inspections scheduled to start next week, Bush administration officials said Sunday.
Saddam has until Friday to accept the U.N. Security Council’s resolution on Iraq’s disarmament and until Dec. 8 to give a full account of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missile programs. The Security Council plans to meet again to decide what action to take if Iraq fails to comply with the resolution.
The resolution passed by the 15-member Security Council on Friday gives Saddam one last opportunity to comply with U.N. demands that he submit to renewed inspections. The resolution declared that Saddam has been in “material breach” of previous international demands to disarm since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
Secretary of State Colin Powell repeated the Bush administration’s assertion that the United States can take action on its own.
“I can assure you that if he doesn’t comply this time, we’ll ask the U.N. to give authorization for all necessary means, and if the U.N. is not willing to do that, the United States, with like-minded nations, will go and disarm him forcefully,” Powell said, speaking on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

— Drew Brown, Knight

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