President Bush's remarks leave little doubt regarding the road down which he is preparing to take the world. Salah Hemeid reports Click to view caption Describing President Saddam Hussein as "a homicidal dictator" and "a student of Stalin", President George W Bush warned Tuesday that the Iraqi leader must either disarm for the sake of peace or the United States will lead a coalition to disarm him. As the United States pressed ahead with military and diplomatic preparations that could lead to an invasion of Iraq, Bush warned in a sombre speech to the American people that the threat from Iraq was "unique and imminent". "There is no time to wait for final proof that Saddam has developed a nuclear capability -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud," Bush said in his 25-minute address delivered in Cincinnati, Ohio. In stark terms, Bush outlined the threat he believed Hussein posed to the United States. "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." "[An] alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." Bush also said the United States did not know how close Iraq was to building a nuclear weapon, but could not afford to wait. "The time for denying, deceiving and delaying has come to an end." Bush delivered a strong warning to Hussein's generals, saying that any who followed orders to launch a chemical or biological weapons attack would face war crimes charges. That comment seems directed at inciting the generals to desert Hussein, leaving him without the military command he would need to counter any American invasion. Some analysts have suggested that Bush's speech was aimed more at members of Congress, who will vote this week on resolutions that would give the US President authority to go to war, and at permanent members of the Security Council, with whom Washington is conferring to draft a new resolution that would authorise new weapon's inspections and threaten military action if Iraq fails to comply. The House of Representatives and Senate are preparing to take a step toward war by giving Bush the authority to use military force against Hussein. Both houses began formal debate Tuesday and hoped to conclude by Thursday night. Observers expect that American legislators will approve a resolution that would give the president wide latitude to take military action to disarm Hussein of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and, if possible, depose the Iraqi leader. The House has allotted 21 hours to debate what House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., a chief sponsor of the White House-backed resolution, called "one of the most consequential questions we will deal with for years to come". The American resolution urges the United Nations to enforce strict new rules for inspecting Iraq and eliminating its weapons of mass destruction, while giving the president the authority to act unilaterally if the United Nations fails to crack down on Baghdad. It also requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of launching a military campaign about the reasons diplomatic were inadequate. Both the House and Senate will also vote on more narrowly drawn alternatives, backed mainly by Democrats, that would authorise force only to deal with the matter of Iraqi weapons and allow unilateral action against the Gulf country only after the United Nations fails to act or Iraq refuses to cooperate with demands for unrestricted inspections. Although Bush's drive to obtain the authority to go to war hit a snag in the Senate when some opponents to the resolution used stalling tactics in an effort to block the measure, few observers doubt, however, that the Bush-approved language will win out in the end, and probably by a sizable margin. At the UN, the United States on Monday continued talks in an effort to gain approval for a Security Council resolution accusing Iraq of violating past resolutions, specifying the actions Baghdad should take and threatening force if it were to refuse. Britain supports the United States, but the other three veto-wielding members of the Security Council -- France, China and Russia -- have questioned the need for a new resolution. Baghdad on Tuesday described President Bush's speech as a "misleading" attempt to justify an attack. Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said, "The speech contained misleading information through which Bush is trying to justify an illogical and illegitimate attack on Iraq." Hussein himself described Bush's statement as "an attempt at arm-twisting", adding, "Iraqis, who have an illustrious history, will not compromise or beg". Regardless of whether Bush persuades Congress, the American public and the international community to adopt a get-tough stance toward Iraq, the US President appears determined to go to war. And when taken as a whole, Bush's remarks and efforts this week leave little room for optimistic interpretations of his remarks that war is not "imminent or unavoidable".
