U.S. rejects arms report

The Bush administrationwill now take its case tothe U.N. Security Counciland pursue more evidence against Saddam.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
WASHINGTON -- The United States declared Iraq in "material breach" of the latest U.N. disarmament resolution Thursday, a step that Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged moved the country closer to war.
The massive Dec. 7 Iraqi declaration of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs is little more than a laundry list of "recycled information and flagrant omissions," a document full of "holes and gaps," Powell said.
"Unfortunately," he added, "this declaration fails totally to move us in the direction of a peaceful solution."
The Bush administration, concluding that Saddam Hussein is not serious about disarmament, turned to convincing the U.N. Security Council that it should declare Iraq in violation of world demands and authorize war.
"This situation cannot continue," Powell said in describing Iraq's weapons declaration, submitted two weeks ago, as 12,200 pages of lies, gaps and omissions.
Massing troops
If military conflict is now more likely, it is not imminent, other senior U.S. officials said.
President Bush will spend the next five or six weeks in pursuit of more evidence against Saddam while massing troops outside Iraq for a potential winter assault, these officials said on condition of anonymity.
Although the term "material breach" is widely interpreted as a prelude to war, Powell said there is no "calendar deadline" to disarm Iraq by force.
Bush was expected to offer his own public comment on Iraq's declaration, largely echoing Powell, during a meeting this afternoon with U.N., Russian and European Union diplomats who are in Washington to consult on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Bush could also use the meeting to lobby the foreign ministers and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Iraq, White House aides said.
This crucial stage comes to a head Jan. 27 when the U.N. weapons inspectors report their findings and Bush decides whether to go to war.
Put on notice
U.N. weapons inspectors put Iraq on notice that it must provide far more evidence about its weapons of mass destruction. But neither the inspectors nor other Security Council members joined the United States in declaring that Iraq has violated U.N. resolutions and is running out of time to avert a war.
Britain, France and the United States supported the inspectors' initial assessment Thursday that Iraq's 12,200-page weapons declaration was short on new information, left many questions unanswered and contained inconsistencies and contradictions.
But the Bush administration stood alone in its conclusion that gaps in the declaration constitute a "material breach."
Russia, which has repeatedly cautioned the United States not to move unilaterally against Iraq, offered yet another cautionary note Thursday.
"The work of the inspectors is at a very early stage," said Sergey Lavrov, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, calling their report Thursday a "very preliminary assessment."
Disappointed inspectors
The inspectors said they will seek more information from Baghdad on outstanding issues including its production of anthrax, continue with inspections which resumed last month after four years, and try to interview Iraqi scientists.
Their disappointment, however, was clear.
"An opportunity was missed in the declaration to give a lot of evidence," chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said after briefing the Security Council. "They can still provide it and I hope they provide it to us orally, but it would have been better if it had been in the declaration."
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said inspectors will go back to the Iraqis with a lot of questions.
"We will expect that we will get answers and hopefully additional evidence," he said.
Iraq's response
Iraq's deputy U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Salmane dismissed the U.S. charges, calling the Iraqi declaration "complete and comprehensive" and saying it could be verified by inspectors.
"The U.S. has made it clear that the issue is not disarmament but to change the legitimate government of Iraq," he said.
Baghdad claims it has no nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or long-range missiles to deliver them. The United States and Britain say they have evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction programs. But inspectors say neither side has provided them with sufficient evidence -- so they can't confirm or disprove Iraq's claims.