THE US: US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell sought to regain the initiative yesterday in the heated international debate over Iraq, accusing President Saddam Hussein in a Washington speech of failing to take the strategic decision to disarm as required by UN Resolution 1441.
By contrast, just minutes before, UN chief weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix told journalists in New York that the destruction by Iraq of its al-Samoud 2 missiles was "real disarmament".
With the French, Russian and German position hardening against the US case for a second resolution authorising war, Mr Powell argued that last November all 15 members of the Security Council had backed resolution 1441, which found Iraq in breach of its disarmament obligations, and that nothing had substantially changed since then.
In contrast to his presentation at the UN on Fenruary 5th, he did not use slides or taped telephone calls, but he cited "real intelligence from multiple sensitive sources" to insist that Saddam Hussein was still hiding weapons of mass destruction. While destroying some al-Samoud 2 missiles, the US knew from its intelligence sources that Saddam Hussein "has ordered the continued production of such missiles" and that he intended to hide missiles and machinery that made the engines, he said.
The intelligence from sources - so sensitive he could not share them - "show the Iraqi regime is still moving weapons of mass destruction around the country to avoid detection".
The information revealed that in early February, Iraq moved prohibited materials every 12-24 hours, and in late February he transferred banned materials in old vehicles to poor working class districts of Baghdad, he said.
Saddam Hussein had also issued new guidelines that "everything possible must be done to avoid discovery of weapons of mass destruction", he claimed.
"Iraq's too-little, too-late gestures are meant not just to deceive and delay action by the international community: he has as one of his major goals to divide the international community, to split us into arguing factions. That effort must fail," Mr Powell said.
The only real issue left was whether Saddam Hussein had "made a strategic decision, a political decision, to give up these horrible weapons of mass destruction." "That's it, in a nutshell," he told the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "It's not about inspectors; it's not about an inpsection regime.
"The inspection effort isn't working." They had got only a "semblance of co-operation, paltry gestures". He chided his colleagues on the Security Council for "trying to keep us divided, trying to keep us confused". Saddam Hussein was simply "trying to delay what might be heading his way".
Mr Powell repeated several times that the Iraqi leader still had one last chance and at this late date that he could still make the strategic decision to disarm by bringing all the documents out, bringing all the weapons scientists into the light and parking the mobile chemical laboratories outside UN headquarters in Baghdad.
"If Iraq complies and disarms, even at this late stage, it is possible to avoid war," he said.
The US Secretary of State dismissed the French suggestion of setting a series of "benchmarks" or unresolved disarmament issues over two to three months, saying some of them have been "out there" for years.
At his news conference at the UN, Dr Blix gave a decidedly different interpretation of Iraqi activity in recent weeks.
There were still many open questions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, he said, and he would release "benchmarks" tomorrow in his report on inspections progress.
The destruction of 19 of the hundred or so al-Samoud 2 missiles whose range exceeded UN limits by a short distance was "real disarmament", he insisted.
"Here, weapons that can be used in war are destroyed in fairly large quantities. There's a whole programme, and it is the various items that are related to that, like launchers, casting chambers, etc. These are being destroyed," he said.
The UN inspections team (UNMOVIC) would create a work programme by March 27th that would contain the key remaining disarmament tasks.
"If war breaks out, I think that it is a serious failure for the approach through inspections to disarmament," he said, while conceding that increased co-operation by Iraq was motivated by the US military threat.
"There is a great deal more co-operation now and the threat certainly has brought it there," he said. He told reporters his inspection teams could not completely verify claims that Iraq had destroyed anthrax or VX chemical agents by examining the soil in areas where Iraq said it has poured the chemicals away.
He also said that Iraq had for the first time allowed seven private interviews with scientists without minders or tape recorders. Cyprus and an unidentified Arab county had agreed to host interviews outside Iraq if that was possible to arrange.
On US streets yesterday, thousands of college students staged strikes and teach-ins against war in Iraq. The group, "Not In Our Name", called on protesters to gather at the World Trade Centre site in New York behind a banner saying "No Ground Zero in Baghdad".
An anti-war rally in Union Square, Manhattan attracted several hundred people waving placards saying "Drop Bush not bombs" and "Defend Iraq Against Imperialist American Attack". and "End US Aid to the Zionist State". In Albany, New York, 100 people protested at a suburban mall over the arrest of a man who wore a peace T-shirt while he shopped. It said "Peace on Earth" and "Give peace a chance".