US: From what members of the Bush administration had to say on the Sunday television talk shows yesterday, it would appear that no matter what came out of the meeting in Baghdad between UN weapons inspectors and Iraqi officials at the weekend, there is little, if any, prospect of diverting the US from its collision course with Iraq.
The divisions between the US, France and Germany also deepened yesterday with US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell and national security adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice pouring scorn on any Franco-German initiative to enlarge and extend inspections in Iraq.
"What France has to do and Germany has to do and members of the Security Council have to do is to read 1441 again," Mr Powell told Fox television, referring to the UN Security Council resolution passed in November to disarm Iraq. "More inspectors doesn't answer the question. This lack of co-operation by Iraq and the false declaration, and all the other actions they have taken and not taken since the resolution passed, all set the stage for the UN to go into session and find whether or not serious consequences are appropriate at this time," he said. "If the UN finds that it does not have the will to act, then President Bush has made it clear that he would act, and . . . we are quite confident we would be joined by many other nations in that action." In appearances on CNN and CBS Ms Rice dismissed the idea that progress had been made in Baghdad at the weekend, calling it just another case of "cheat and retreat".
"The job of the inspectors is not to negotiate with Iraq, but to verify disarmament," she said. "Iraq has done nothing but play games so when the president says the game is over he means that game is over." At the same time she predicted "fairly intensive discussions" over the next several weeks to persuade the UN Security Council to back the US position.
"There is nothing in Resolution 1441 that talks about making a little bit of progress," she said.
"There is nothing in Resolution 1441 that allows the Iraqis to meter out a little bit of co-operation here and a little bit of co-operation there in order to deceive the world and make the world think they are trying to cooperate."
Even allowing U2 reconnaissance flights and allowing inspectors to interview Iraqi scientists in private was too late, she implied. Iraq had its chance to do that when the resolution was passed. "Iraqis are playing a game here. They are trying to create a little bit of a sense that they are moving forward" but they had still not revealed where their weapons stocks or mobile biological laboratories were.
Asked if it was too late for Iraq to do anything to stop war, she said people were going to be "very sceptical whatever he does now because we know that for the last three months he has been hiding things" and "because he is a serial liar".
She said the administration had yet to hear anything official from the German and French governments about their intentions but "the goal here is not continuing inspections. The goal here is to disarm Iraq." To send more inspectors "would be a diversion" from the goal of Resolution 1441.
"The inspectors are there to confirm Iraq disarming, not to hunt and peck." It wasn't the US that was increasingly isolated in the world, but France and Germany, she said.
These "isolated powers don't seem to understand the urgency of defending the credibility of the Security Council". However "the world is coming to a recognition that thanks to American leadership we may finally be able to deal with this serial abuser of UN Security Council resolutions." Before hearing the outcome of the Baghdad talks, Mr Bush made the same point to congressional Republicans at a policy conference. "The Iraqi leader wants the world to think that hide-and-seek is a game that we should play.
And it's over," he said. "It is clear that not only is Saddam Hussein deceiving, it is clear he's not disarming. And so you'll see us over the next short period of time working with friends and allies and the United Nations to bring that body along." Ms Rice also criticised the UN for electing Libya to head its human rights commission and for allowing Iraq take its turn later this year as head of the UN disarmament commission. These two events are "laughable" she said and "the UN had best pay attention to its own credibility." In New York yesterday 30 women lay down in the deep snow in Central Park to spell "No Bush" as a protest against US policy. In the state of Maine the Senate voted to join 63 US cities in calling for diplomacy over war.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed on Saturday to the Bush administration to take time for patient negotiations before rushing into war.