wonderfly
03-17-2003, 11:02 AM
This is it guys! Just in on breaking news, the White House is saying "The Diplomatic Window is closed" and Bush is going to address the nation tonight.
Look for War to start within the next 3 days or so, I suspect, (but I could be wrong).
Here's the news just in:
"BREAKING NEWS
NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
March 17 — The United States declared Monday that the diplomatic window “has closed” for a peaceful resolution to the Iraq showdown and that President Bush will address the nation later on Monday. At the United Nations, the United States and its allies withdrew a resolution that would have paved the way for U.N. authorization for war, having failed to persuade key members to support the measure.
IN AN APPARENT last-ditch effort to avoid war, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was quoted by state television as telling a diplomat from Tunisia that his government had weapons of mass destruction in the past, but no longer possessed them.
It appeared, however, that his declaration would have little effect on the United States and it allies, which have been preparing the world for a war to disarm Saddam.
Monday’s fast-paced developments began when British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said at the United Nations that the three co-sponsors of the U.N. resolution to disarm Iraq — Britain, the United States and Spain — were not going to call for a vote of the Security Council because one council member had threatened to veto it. Although he did not mention it, the reference appeared to be to France.
The resolution would have authorized war anytime after Monday unless Iraq proved before then that it had disarmed.
WHITE HOUSE COMMENT
Weeks of intense diplomacy and pressure from the Bush administration failed to convince a majority of the council’s 15 members that the time for war had come.
In an effort to change members’ positions, Britain offered some amendments but council members weren’t swayed.
Shortly after the U.N. Security Council met on Monday morning, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, “The diplomatic window has closed as a result of the U.N.’s failure to enforce it’s own resolutions for Saddam to disarm.”
He declined to say whether Saddam would be given a deadline in President Bush’s speech, set for 8 p.m. ET. “I will not get into any discussions about when military hostilities may or may not begin,” he said.
AZORES WARNING
The last push toward war began on Sunday, when Bush met his allies from Britain, Spain and Portugal at a summit in the Azores.
“We hope tomorrow the U.N. will do its job,” Bush said at a news conference. “Tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world.”
First thing Monday, several top administration officials filed into the White House. The group included Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
As the U.S. warning came, Germany announced it was closing its embassy in Baghdad and that its chargé d’affairs was heading for Jordan. The embassies of China and the Czech Republic were also ordered evacuated.
Britain advised all of its citizens except diplomatic staff to leave Kuwait as soon as possible, citing a potential threat from Iraq. The United States ordered all government dependents and nonessential staff out of Kuwait, Syria, Israel and the West Bank and Gaza.
In Baghdad, store owners moved their merchandise to the relative safety of warehouses, fearing bombs and looting if a war starts, while residents flooded markets to stock up on food and taped their windows to guard against flying glass.
Foreign journalists also began clearing out of Iraq. NBC News confirmed that its six-member crew had reached Amman, while two ABC News journalists were reportedly leaving the Iraq capital. China’s official Xinhua news agency said six Chinese reporters were leaving: two from Xinhua, three from Chinese state television and one from an unidentified Hong Kong news outlet.
A week ago, there were 450 foreign journalists in Baghdad. On Monday, the number was down to 300, the Information Ministry said.
LATE SUNDAY ADVICE
Early Monday, Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, announced that the United States had advised his team to leave Baghdad.
He said the recommendation to pull out was given late Sunday night both to his Vienna-based agency hunting for atomic weaponry and to the New York-based teams looking for biological and chemical weapons.
He said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Security Council were informed and that the council would take up the issue later Monday.
U.N. officials told Reuters that the inspectors will recommend that the monitors be pulled out in the next 24 hours.
Most of the teams’ helicopters already have left Iraq because their insurance was canceled, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said, and the personnel level was low because of a scheduled rotation home.
The teams, which returned to Iraq on Nov. 27 after a nearly four-year absence, drew up contingency plans to evacuate even before their redeployment.
NBC: Afghans fear they will be forgotten
Also Monday, Blix was preparing to give the Security Council a 30-page report listing about a dozen key remaining disarmament tasks that Iraq should complete in the coming months.
PAST EXPERIENCE
Inspectors have experience in getting out of Iraq in a hurry: In December 1998, they pulled out on the eve of U.S.-British airstrikes amid allegations that Baghdad was not cooperating with the teams.
There have been some concerns that the Iraqis might hold the inspectors as human shields in case of a conflict. But Iraq’s foreign minister appeared to play down those fears in a live television interview on the al-Arabiya Arabic satellite channel Sunday night.
“The inspectors came by a decision of the Security Council, which decides on their departure,” Naji Sabri said.
ElBaradei told the nuclear agency’s 35-nation governing board Monday that he was worried about the safety of the teams, yet still held out hope that war could be averted.
“Naturally the safety of our staff remains our primary consideration at this difficult time,” he said. “I earnestly hope — even at this late hour — that a peaceful resolution of the issue can be achieved, and that the world can be spared a war.”
ElBaradei, who has been monitoring the situation day to day, also confirmed that he and Blix had received an invitation from Baghdad “to visit Iraq with a view toward accelerating the implementation of our respective mandates.” He did not say whether he or Blix had accepted.
“I should note that in recent weeks, possibly as a result of increasing pressure by the international community, Iraq has been more forthcoming in its cooperation with the IAEA,” he said, adding that inspectors still have found no evidence that Saddam Hussein has revived his nuclear program.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Prime Minister Tony Blair has called an emergency Cabinet meeting on the crisis Monday, with a decision on military action drawing close. Also, the government’s top legal adviser, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, said war on Iraq would be legal on the grounds of existing U.N. resolutions.
A former Iraqi army chief, Nizar al-Khazraji, disappeared from his Danish home on Monday, defying a court ruling restricting his movements to prevent him avoiding a possible trial for war crimes, the state prosecutor said. “The only thing we know for sure is that he has disappeared. He probably left his flat this morning,” state prosecutor Birgitte Vestberg told Reuters.
Australia has made no decision to join a U.S.-led attack on Iraq but is much more likely to be involved in a war than it was a week ago, Prime Minister John Howard said. An attack would be legal without a further U.N. resolution, Howard said.
Finland said on Monday it would expel three Iraqi diplomats working at the Iraqi embassy in Helsinki, making it the latest country to send home diplomats following a request from the United States.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell at the United Nations, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. "
Look for War to start within the next 3 days or so, I suspect, (but I could be wrong).
Here's the news just in:
"BREAKING NEWS
NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
March 17 — The United States declared Monday that the diplomatic window “has closed” for a peaceful resolution to the Iraq showdown and that President Bush will address the nation later on Monday. At the United Nations, the United States and its allies withdrew a resolution that would have paved the way for U.N. authorization for war, having failed to persuade key members to support the measure.
IN AN APPARENT last-ditch effort to avoid war, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was quoted by state television as telling a diplomat from Tunisia that his government had weapons of mass destruction in the past, but no longer possessed them.
It appeared, however, that his declaration would have little effect on the United States and it allies, which have been preparing the world for a war to disarm Saddam.
Monday’s fast-paced developments began when British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said at the United Nations that the three co-sponsors of the U.N. resolution to disarm Iraq — Britain, the United States and Spain — were not going to call for a vote of the Security Council because one council member had threatened to veto it. Although he did not mention it, the reference appeared to be to France.
The resolution would have authorized war anytime after Monday unless Iraq proved before then that it had disarmed.
WHITE HOUSE COMMENT
Weeks of intense diplomacy and pressure from the Bush administration failed to convince a majority of the council’s 15 members that the time for war had come.
In an effort to change members’ positions, Britain offered some amendments but council members weren’t swayed.
Shortly after the U.N. Security Council met on Monday morning, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, “The diplomatic window has closed as a result of the U.N.’s failure to enforce it’s own resolutions for Saddam to disarm.”
He declined to say whether Saddam would be given a deadline in President Bush’s speech, set for 8 p.m. ET. “I will not get into any discussions about when military hostilities may or may not begin,” he said.
AZORES WARNING
The last push toward war began on Sunday, when Bush met his allies from Britain, Spain and Portugal at a summit in the Azores.
“We hope tomorrow the U.N. will do its job,” Bush said at a news conference. “Tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world.”
First thing Monday, several top administration officials filed into the White House. The group included Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
As the U.S. warning came, Germany announced it was closing its embassy in Baghdad and that its chargé d’affairs was heading for Jordan. The embassies of China and the Czech Republic were also ordered evacuated.
Britain advised all of its citizens except diplomatic staff to leave Kuwait as soon as possible, citing a potential threat from Iraq. The United States ordered all government dependents and nonessential staff out of Kuwait, Syria, Israel and the West Bank and Gaza.
In Baghdad, store owners moved their merchandise to the relative safety of warehouses, fearing bombs and looting if a war starts, while residents flooded markets to stock up on food and taped their windows to guard against flying glass.
Foreign journalists also began clearing out of Iraq. NBC News confirmed that its six-member crew had reached Amman, while two ABC News journalists were reportedly leaving the Iraq capital. China’s official Xinhua news agency said six Chinese reporters were leaving: two from Xinhua, three from Chinese state television and one from an unidentified Hong Kong news outlet.
A week ago, there were 450 foreign journalists in Baghdad. On Monday, the number was down to 300, the Information Ministry said.
LATE SUNDAY ADVICE
Early Monday, Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, announced that the United States had advised his team to leave Baghdad.
He said the recommendation to pull out was given late Sunday night both to his Vienna-based agency hunting for atomic weaponry and to the New York-based teams looking for biological and chemical weapons.
He said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Security Council were informed and that the council would take up the issue later Monday.
U.N. officials told Reuters that the inspectors will recommend that the monitors be pulled out in the next 24 hours.
Most of the teams’ helicopters already have left Iraq because their insurance was canceled, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said, and the personnel level was low because of a scheduled rotation home.
The teams, which returned to Iraq on Nov. 27 after a nearly four-year absence, drew up contingency plans to evacuate even before their redeployment.
NBC: Afghans fear they will be forgotten
Also Monday, Blix was preparing to give the Security Council a 30-page report listing about a dozen key remaining disarmament tasks that Iraq should complete in the coming months.
PAST EXPERIENCE
Inspectors have experience in getting out of Iraq in a hurry: In December 1998, they pulled out on the eve of U.S.-British airstrikes amid allegations that Baghdad was not cooperating with the teams.
There have been some concerns that the Iraqis might hold the inspectors as human shields in case of a conflict. But Iraq’s foreign minister appeared to play down those fears in a live television interview on the al-Arabiya Arabic satellite channel Sunday night.
“The inspectors came by a decision of the Security Council, which decides on their departure,” Naji Sabri said.
ElBaradei told the nuclear agency’s 35-nation governing board Monday that he was worried about the safety of the teams, yet still held out hope that war could be averted.
“Naturally the safety of our staff remains our primary consideration at this difficult time,” he said. “I earnestly hope — even at this late hour — that a peaceful resolution of the issue can be achieved, and that the world can be spared a war.”
ElBaradei, who has been monitoring the situation day to day, also confirmed that he and Blix had received an invitation from Baghdad “to visit Iraq with a view toward accelerating the implementation of our respective mandates.” He did not say whether he or Blix had accepted.
“I should note that in recent weeks, possibly as a result of increasing pressure by the international community, Iraq has been more forthcoming in its cooperation with the IAEA,” he said, adding that inspectors still have found no evidence that Saddam Hussein has revived his nuclear program.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Prime Minister Tony Blair has called an emergency Cabinet meeting on the crisis Monday, with a decision on military action drawing close. Also, the government’s top legal adviser, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, said war on Iraq would be legal on the grounds of existing U.N. resolutions.
A former Iraqi army chief, Nizar al-Khazraji, disappeared from his Danish home on Monday, defying a court ruling restricting his movements to prevent him avoiding a possible trial for war crimes, the state prosecutor said. “The only thing we know for sure is that he has disappeared. He probably left his flat this morning,” state prosecutor Birgitte Vestberg told Reuters.
Australia has made no decision to join a U.S.-led attack on Iraq but is much more likely to be involved in a war than it was a week ago, Prime Minister John Howard said. An attack would be legal without a further U.N. resolution, Howard said.
Finland said on Monday it would expel three Iraqi diplomats working at the Iraqi embassy in Helsinki, making it the latest country to send home diplomats following a request from the United States.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell at the United Nations, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. "