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Bush approves Pentagon plan

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington NOV. 12. With three days to go for the expiry of the deadline set by the United Nations, Iraq has been reminded that time is not only running out but that the United States is determined to get rid of all weapons of mass destruction.

Using the occasion of Veterans Day, the President, George W. Bush, said the U.S. was prepared to go to war if that was the only way to get rid of the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein's "tools of mass murder''.

"We will not permit a dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction to threaten America with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. This great nation will not live at the mercy of any foreign plot or power'', Mr. Bush said. The Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, a key hawk in the administration, doubted that Iraq will give up its weapons of mass destruction and that Mr. Hussein has already started hiding banned weapons deep underground. "They have gone so far underground that the only way they can be found is through defectors'', Mr. Rumsfeld remarked, going on to say that finding the weapons could take months. "The time to confront this threat is before it arrives, not the day after'', Mr. Bush told a group of veterans at the White House.

The President also visited the Vietnam War Memorial and the Arlington Cemetery.

With the clock ticking towards the deadline for the United Nations Resolution, senior members of the Bush administration are keeping up the pressure on Iraq and openly talking about going to war.

Iraq has until Friday to accept Security Council Resolution 1441. "We have to keep, in a sense, a gun pointed to the head of the Iraqi regime because that's the only way they cooperate'', the President's National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, said.

The tough talk of administration officials is also matched by developments on the ground pertaining to the war front with the U.S. making it clear that it means business as far as Resolution 1441 is concerned.

The President tentatively approved plans of the Defence Department that calls for a land, sea and air force of up to 250,000 troops ready to invade Iraq. Military analysts are saying that prior to the entry of forces, the U.S. will unleash devastating air strikes on a magnitude never seen before.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration is watching the goings-on in Baghdad carefully, especially as they pertain to Resolution 1441. There has been no official response to the "rejection'' of the Resolution by Iraq's Parliament. But top Cabinet officials had already dismissed the role of the Iraqi Parliament, saying the regime being a dictatorship, the only person that mattered was Mr. Hussein.

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