US Troops Finalise Packing

KUWAIT, Tuesday – Thousands of US marines finished packing their bags and set off with their hardware across the Kuwait desert on Tuesday in readiness to invade Iraq.
They began to move after US President George W. Bush on Monday night gave President Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to go into exile or face invasion.
“The tyrant will soon be gone,” Bush said late Monday as some 300,000 US and British troops massed in the Gulf awaited orders for what has become a virtually certain invasion.
“All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing,” Bush said.
But after Bush’s speech, European countries opposed to a war stuck to their positions that a military conflict was not needed and could have potentially lethal consequences for the entire Middle East region.
Taking aim at critics of his doctrine of preventive war, Bush said in his speech that acting “only after they (terrorists) have struck first is not self-defence. It is suicide. The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.”
“The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety,” he said.
He promised that a “broad coalition” of nations “do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace,” and will shoulder some of the burdens of a campaign set to cost at least tens of billions of dollars.
Bush also warned Iraqi military and intelligence services to avoid war crimes trials by refusing orders to destroy the oil wells he has said will be used to fuel Iraq’s reconstruction, or to use weapons of mass destruction.
“War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, ‘I was just following orders,’” said the US leader, who also called on Iraq’s armed forces to lay down their arms.
“If war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life,” said Bush, who also urged all foreign nationals, including journalists and UN inspectors, to leave Iraq immediately.
“This is not a question of authority, it is a question of will,” he said. “The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security.”
But France, which has spearheaded opposition to a war in Europe, yesterday described the military action as a unilateral decision which was taken against the will of the UN Security Council.
In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the outcome of the Iraq crisis will determine the course of global relations “for the next generation.”
“I believe passionately that we must hold firm” to the decision to use force to strip Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction, said Blair as he kicked off a 10-hour House of Commons debate on Iraq.
He said the Iraq crisis would determine the way that Britain and the world deal with key security issues, as well as the future of the United Nations, the European Union and the way the United States engages with the world.
Blair said Saddam’s claims to have voluntarily destroyed stocks of chemical and biological agents recorded by UN inspectors prior to 1998 were “palpably absurd.”
AFP