BRITAIN: Britain is believed ready to announce major troop deployments to the Persian Gulf, despite the Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw's suggestion that the balance has tipped against war with Iraq.
Mr Straw yesterday put the odds of war with Iraq at roughly 60/40 against and did not deny he was the source of such an assessment, originally attributed to an unnamed cabinet minister, over the weekend. That assessment had surprised defence chiefs ahead of an expected statement by the Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, which could come as early as today, confirming that thousands of British troops and reservists are being readied for military action.
Speculation about Mr Hoon's planned deployments built at Westminster last night as the Ministry of Defence confirmed that the carrier HMS Ark Royal will lead a Royal Navy task force headed for the Gulf at the weekend.
Downing Street denied any suggestion of cabinet confusion, insisting that Mr Straw's remarks at a conference of British ambassadors merely underlined that "the ball remains in Saddam Hussein's court" and that "war is not inevitable if Saddam plays his part". However, the spokesman repeated the familiar line that Iraqi compliance with UN requirements would only be achieved by the credible threat of force.
At the same time, Mr Straw himself appeared to make a case for war, by directly linking al-Qaeda terrorism with "rogue states" and "unstable regimes" such as that in Baghdad.
Addressing some 150 diplomats at the start of their two-day conference in London, Mr Straw said the immediate challenge for British foreign policy was the disruption of terrorist groups which might acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The events of September 11 had shown that organisations such as al-Qaeda would stop at nothing to inflict mass slaughter, and Mr Straw said he was "certain" they would use WMD if they could acquire them.
The Foreign Secretary continued: "The most likely sources of technology and know-how for such terrorist organisations are rogue regimes which continue to flout their obligations under international law not to develop nuclear, chemical or biological weapons." Terrorism and such rogue regimes, therefore, were "part of the same picture," Mr Straw contended.
While suggesting that the balance had tipped against the likelihood of military action against Iraq, Mr Straw told the BBC that the situation changed on a daily basis. Mr Straw also suggested that the US now shared Britain's preference for a second resolution from the UN Security Council ahead of any military engagement.