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Baghdad not in material breach: Britain

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON DEC. 19. Even as Britain today echoed the U.S. assessment that Iraq's 12,000-page dossier on its weapons of mass destruction was not a truthful account, Ministers sought to dispel fears that this might be seized by Washington to call for a military intervention in Baghdad.

The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said that though the Iraqi declaration, claiming that it did not possess any such weapons, was an "obvious falsehood'' it did not amount to a "material breach'' of the U.N. Security Council resolution. In terms of the resolution, only a "material breach'' could constitute grounds for further action against Iraq.

The Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, took the same line when asked whether the British and U.S. disappointment with the Iraqi dossier meant that a war was imminent. He said the "gaps'' in the dossier alone were unlikely to provide a trigger for military attack. But Iraq could find itself in trouble if it tried to "deliberately'' obstruct the weapons' inspectors and "the process set out in the (Security Council) resolution'', he told the BBC.

He said while military preparations were being made, a war was not inevitable and Britain was still hoping for a peaceful solution.

"Contingency preparations are aimed at increasing the readiness of a range of options. This process does not lead inexorably to military action,'' he told agitated MPs who warned against a war saying that it could destabilise the entire Arab world.

Amid attempts to play down prospects of a war, the Government made it clear that the ball was in Saddam Hussein's court. "If Saddam persists in this obvious falsehood (that he does not have weapons of mass destruction), it will become clear that he has rejected the pathway to peace laid down in (U.N.) resolution 1441,'' Mr. Straw said.

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