United States Foreign Relations Iraq

The Democratic-controlled Congress, closing ranks behind President Bush at a crucial moment in American history, voted Saturday to authorize U.S. troops to attack Iraq as early as Wednesday. Bush's victory was decisive and bipartisan, even though the authorization was strongly opposed by the Democratic leadership and most aspirants for the Democratic presidential nomination. Many Democrats abandoned their party leaders, and Republicans were nearly unanimous in support of the President.

His excellency, great uncle to all, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein celebrated turning 65 on Sunday, and his wish seemed to be for the U.S. to hear loud and clear that his people love him dearly. Iraqis are edgy, especially since President Bush called their country part of an "axis of evil." They don't want any more bombing. And they chose their leader's birthday to pour into the streets--maybe not exactly spontaneously, but in any case in great volume--to say, in effect, "Back off."

The phone call came to the royal palace in Kuwait city just before 4:30 a.m. It was Princess Mariam Saad al Sabah's brother-in-law. "You have to leave the palace. Go to the summer house," he said when she reached over to her bedside table and picked up the telephone. "He had no time to say why," she recalls. "All I knew was, he is a calm person, and at that time his voice wasn't calm. We left."

The crown prince of Bahrain gave Vice President Dick Cheney a brief but public lecture Sunday over the U.S. decision to focus on Iraq while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to spiral. Cheney acknowledged the Middle East violence "is a preoccupation for everybody in this part of the world."

Despite the heavy hand of the Iraqi invaders, Kuwait city is a lawless capital of increasing desperation, according to refugees who have reached the safety of Bahrain. Only in the past week have Iraqi police officers been deployed on the city's streets, said one refugee who arrived in Bahrain over the weekend. "Very few people are venturing out of their homes," he said. "The looting continues--some by the Iraqis, some by Arab and Asian workers. They even hit the Pizza Hut."

Speaking softly in a voice that often broke, an American-born woman who fled Kuwait after the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion told members of Congress about the scene at a hospital there: "We took our cousin, who was in labor, to Sabah Maternity Hospital. Upon our arrival, we saw a Kuwaiti woman at the front door--in hysterics, because she was in labor and they (Iraqi troops) would not allow her to enter," said Deborah Hadi, pausing to fight back a sob.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declared Monday that his military machine has nerve gas and the means to deliver it, threatening to destroy "half of Israel" if it attacks Iraqi targets.

White House officials Wednesday denied news reports that a Commerce Department official, Dennis Kloske, has been fired after publicly blaming Pentagon and State Department officials for failing to block exports of high technology to Iraq in the months preceding the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait. The incident was the latest in an intensive round of Washington finger-pointing over who will get the blame for the Administration's refusal to clamp down on trade with Iraq before the invasion.

If the United States and Iraq go to war, the U.S. military plans to unleash a relentless air campaign designed in part to "decapitate" the Iraqi leadership by targeting President Saddam Hussein, his family, his senior commanders, his palace guard and even his mistress, according to senior U.S. military planners.

Following is the text of the letter that President Bush wrote to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Jan. 5. The letter was refused Wednesday by Iraq's Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz when Secretary of State James A. Baker III tried to get him to deliver it. Aziz said it contained language inappropriate for correspondence between two heads of state.

Vice President Dick Cheney moved Monday to quiet British critics of possible military action against Iraq, as he set out on his first overseas trip as vice president, a 12-nation journey to round up support for the next phase in the war against terrorism. Cheney, in a luncheon with Prime Minister Tony Blair, heard no open discussion of reluctance to expand the war to encompass Iraq.

Vice President Dick Cheney's ambitious 11-nation swing through the Middle East, which begins today, has as one of its critical goals lining up a consensus on what to do about Iraq. But that doesn't mean the United States will launch an operation to oust the regime of President Saddam Hussein any time soon. The deeper the Bush administration gets into sorting through the options, the more daunting the obstacles appear, U.S. officials concede.

In a scene reminiscent of Adlai Stevenson displaying aerial images of Soviet bases during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, U.S. officials Wednesday gave diplomats here a high-tech slide show of satellite photos that the U.S. says prove Iraq has illegally converted recently imported trucks to weapons carriers. The unusual U.S. intelligence presentation was staged on the eve of the first high-level talks between Iraqi and U.N. officials in almost two years.

President Bush issued an ominous warning to Saddam Hussein on Wednesday, saying the Iraqi president "needs to understand I am serious" about launching preemptive strikes beyond Afghanistan to eliminate terrorist threats against the United States. "Make no mistake about it: If we need to, we will take necessary action to defend the American people," Bush said in reply to a reporter's question about his intentions toward Iraq. "I will reserve whatever options I have."

After a year of internal divisions and military diversions, serious planning is underway within the Bush administration for a campaign against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The administration expects to complete a long-delayed Iraq policy review by the time Vice President Dick Cheney makes his nine-nation Mideast tour next month, so that he can outline American plans to Arab leaders, according to senior U.S. officials. Any denouement in Iraq is still a long way off, the officials insist.

President Bush said Monday that Iraq and other nations that develop weapons of mass destruction "will be held accountable," his strongest warning yet that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could be the next target in the war against terrorism. Although Bush stopped short of threatening military action, he said Hussein would learn the consequences if he continues to block United Nations weapons inspectors from entering Iraq. "Hussein . . .

It wasn't the quicksand that was so frightening. Or the sandstorms. Or the oil pipelines that loomed suddenly out of the blowing sand. It was the tanks. "We were afraid the tanks would fire at us and that would be it," said Bassam Mohtady, an American who, with his 8-year-old son, crossed the Kuwaiti desert in a caravan of vehicles led by a local Bedouin guide. "It was like cat and mouse in the desert," added Mohtady, 34, who arrived with his son, Sammer, in Boston on Sunday.

Fourteen Americans, part of a sudden surge of more than 50 captive Westerners freed by Iraq, arrived Tuesday evening in Jordan, relieved to be out of Baghdad but concerned about the people they left behind. The release of more French, British and Finnish detainees was either completed or in process. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's current hostage strategy is expected to peak today with a decree freeing all French civilians, estimated to number 400, held against their will in Iraq and Kuwait.

The war in Afghanistan isn't over yet, but planners at the Pentagon are already thinking about another potential military front in the war on terrorism: Iraq. President Bush has not decided whether to strike at Saddam Hussein, and does not plan to make such a decision soon, aides said. "There's still a whole lot left to do in Afghanistan," a White House official said. But the fall of Kabul and the prospect that U.S.

On to Baghdad? With the Taliban crumbling, some American conservatives who initially accused President Bush of pursuing the war in Afghanistan too timidly are intensifying pressure on him to apply the military strategy used there against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In a flurry of newspaper articles and television appearances, prominent hawks such as former Defense Department official Richard N.