Ball in Iraq's court to avoid war, says US envoy
When US Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council this week to convince his audience why an assault on Iraq was necessary, he presented an unprecedented abundance of sensitive intelligence information.
In an exclusive interview with
malaysiakini
, US ambassador to Malaysia Marie Huhtala said Powell's presentation shows the serious effort taken by the US government to convince the UN and the public that the Iraqi military had indeed conspired to conceal weapons.
She claimed the presentation, in which Powell played tapes of intercepted conversations and showed satellite pictures, was convincing enough to prove that Iraq had not fulfilled the UN disarmament it had pledged at the end of the 1990 Gulf War.
"The speech he (Powell) gave was unprecedented in the amount of sensitive intelligence information. This is a serious effort on our part to convince the UN and public around the world, including US citizens, that we are not making this up. We know that these things (weapons) are there (in Iraq) and we are deeply concerned," she said.
"We have a lot of information and evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction which are carefully hidden, that they stopped the UN inspectors from carrying out their duties in a proper manner and that they are cooperating with terrorists".
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