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US Severs Last Ties With Iraq

February 9 2003
The Sun-Herald

The United States announced the closure of its Interests Section in the Polish Embassy in Baghdad and urged all US citizens to get out of the country, severing its final diplomatic link with Iraq in a move that normally precedes war.

The State Department late on Friday also issued a travel warning for Iraq "to reflect the temporary closure" of the interests section.

"No consular services are available to US citizens at this time in Iraq," said the warning.

"The US government continues to urge all citizens to avoid travel to Iraq. US citizens in Iraq should depart."

The State Department simultaneously moved to cut its diplomatic presence across the Middle East in countries and territories "within Scud missile range of Iraq".
 

A series of travel warnings issued late yesterday alerted Americans "to increased security concerns" in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, and authorised the departure of "dependants and non-emergency employees" of its diplomatic missions in those states and areas.

Diplomats said earlier that the official announcement of the closure of its interests section in the Polish Embassy in Baghdad would be made only after all Polish employees of that section had left.

Poland earlier in the week recalled its ambassador to Iraq.

The warnings came as chief UN weapons inspectors prepared for a weekend trip to Baghdad that could spell the difference between war and peace.

Hans Blix, head of the weapons inspection teams, and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, are due in Baghdad today and will report to the UN Security Council next Friday.

French President Jacques Chirac meanwhile told US President George W Bush that Iraq "can be disarmed without war," saying in a telephone summit that any use of force against Iraq would require a vote in the UN Security Council, where France is one of five countries holding veto power.

Bush faced still more opposition to war in a separate telephone summit with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who said UN weapons inspectors should be given more support, China's state-controlled media reported.

Jiang said UN weapon inspectors had made "some progress" in Iraq, although there were still "some problems" and Iraq should cooperate more with the United Nations.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also said Moscow saw "no basis for adopting a UN Security Council resolution that would open the way for the use of force against Iraq".

Bush hardened his rhetoric, saying the United Nations must soon confront Iraq or stand aside.

"The UN Security Council has got to make up its mind soon as to whether or not its word means anything," he warned in comments to reporters at the White House.

"I have said that if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. And I mean it."

As if adding muscle to Bush's threat, the United States ordered the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk to leave Japan for the Gulf to join three carriers already there and a fourth en route, giving a major new boost to the huge US force massing around Iraq.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in Europe to build allied support for a possible US-led war, said international diplomatic efforts to get Iraq to disarm had failed.

Visiting US troops at Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, he said a war with Iraq, if it happens, would last "six days, maybe six weeks" but certainly less than six months.

Iraqi officials allowed the first private interview between weapons inspectors and an Iraqi scientist on Friday and Blix said Iraq appeared to be "making an effort" to meet demands for increased cooperation.

A negative report by Blix and ElBaradei on February 14 could serve to trigger the invasion the United States has threatened to unleash on the grounds that Iraq continues to produce and conceal weapons of mass destruction.

Yesterday Iraqi officials also gave reporters a tour of two missile sites US Secretary of State Colin Powell said were facilities containing banned weapons in his searing indictment of Baghdad before the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

"We are showing this site to the media and the world to expose the lies of Colin Powell," site director Ali Jassem said.

But Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz conceded in an interview published yesterday that a US-led war against his country now seemed inevitable.

"We are well aware what is happening near our borders," he said in reference to a massive US military buildup in neighbouring Kuwait.

"The Americans and their few allies intend to destroy Iraq," he said.

"For them, it seems, this question is already decided."

The British government admitted meanwhile that much of its dossier on Iraq's alleged illicit weapons programs came from a Californian student, after a television report said large parts of it had been copied from his thesis and that much of the data he had used was over 10 years old.

Adding to tensions that caused oil prices to spike to new two-year highs, Washington raised its domestic terrorism warning level from "elevated" to "high", indicating an increased possibility of an attack.

Bush, who said he would welcome a second UN resolution, maintained that one passed on November 8 was clear, suggesting again that Washington would act with or without clear UN approval.

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