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...peshmerga near Duanzasimam say they have watched Saddam's forces prepare for American bombers. Bunkers are being reinforced, ammunition is being brought forward andtanks are being deployed around Tuz Khurmatu and, more worrying, mysterious covered vehicles the peshmerga say "are like the ones Colin Powell had pictured at the UN" are supposedly arriving at night at a nearby airfield. Tougher restrictions are being imposed on the civilian traffic passing into Baghdad's territory. At Chamchamal, west of Sulaimaniya, fewer and fewer cars are allowed to cross each day. At Kifri, further south, goods had been smuggling back and forth thanks...
...from the north - has not yet joined the war party. Washington has had to give up trying to convince potential allies of its case for war, and seek instead to leverage economic and other unrelated pressure points to compel some of the reluctant nations to supply basing rights or UN Security Council votes. Even then, it has been an uphill battle...
...course Bush the elder had it easy. Iraq had invaded Kuwait and he simply had to convince everyone to apply the UN founding principle, upheld across ideological lines, outlawing any aggression that violated a country's sovereignty. Bush the younger is trying to convince them to violate Iraq's sovereignty to the extent of invading and occupying the country, on the grounds that Iraq has failed to destroy prohibited weapons that could be used in terror attacks. And that's not exactly a no-brainer for the Security Council...
...Friday: Iraq has failed to cooperate to the extent demanded by Security Council Resolution 1441, but mounting pressure has produced important and encouraging moves towards complying, and inspections should be given more time and intensified. Blix will cite Iraq's destruction of a medium range missile that exceeds UN-imposed limits for Iraq, some unimpeded interviews with scientists and production of further evidence on chemical and biological programs. Bush and other administration officials have derided those as calculated deception to divide the international community. Nobody can argue, says the President, that Iraq has met its obligations - and he vowed...
...disarmament. That suggests that military action may be delayed, possibly until the end of March. But listening to President Bush's promises on everything from providing humanitarian assistance to Iraqi refugees to doing everything possible to avoid Iraqi civilian casualties, there could be little doubt that with or without UN authorization, he plans to oust Saddam Hussein...