US President George W. Bush on Monday warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein he must allow the return of UN arms inspectors to see if Baghdad is developing chemical, biological or nuclear arms, reported AFP.
The warning came after a series of developments that have made observers base speculations on an imminent US attack on Iraq on biowar grounds.
Asked what consequences Saddam Hussein would face if he refuses, the US leader curtly replied: "He'll find out."
Amid speculation that Iraq could soon find itself in the crosshairs of the US-led war on terrorism, said AFP, Bush went beyond his usual warning that nations aiding terrorists will share their fate to include those developing "weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorize nations."
"They will be held accountable," pledged Bush, who launched a global campaign to stamp out terrorism after September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"And as for Mr. Saddam Hussein, he needs to let inspectors back in his country to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction," the president told reporters in the White House Rose Garden, quoted by the agency.
Baghdad on Wednesday rejected the US accusations that it possesses biological weapons, saying the charge was aimed at paving the way for a US attack on Iraq once Washington had wrapped up its war on Afghanistan.
"This campaign ... aims at preparing the climate in and outside the United States for an aggression against Iraq after the end (of the war) in Afghanistan," said Salem al-Kubaisi, who heads the Iraqi parliament's Arab and international relations committee.
Washington's claim was also aimed at setting the stage at the UN Security Council for issuing a resolution hostile to Iraq when the council discusses the renewal of Baghdad's "oil-for-food" program with the UN later this month, Kubaisi said.
The United States this week accused Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria of violating the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which bans the development, stockpiling and use of biological weapons, by developing a germ warfare capability.
"The United States strongly suspects Iraq of having profited from an absence of UN inspectors for three years to step up a gear in all the stages of its program for offensive biological weapons," US representative John Bolton told the convention's 144 member states in Geneva on Monday.
Baghdad has ruled out the return of the weapons experts, who were pulled out of Iraq shortly before the United States and Britain launched a bombing blitz on the country in December 1998.
There have been no UN arms inspectors in Iraq since December 1998, when the former commission, known as UNSCOM, pulled out on the eve of a bombing campaign by the United States and Britain.
UNMOVIC was set up a year later by Security Council Resolution 1284, which for the first time offered Iraq the possibility of having UN sanctions suspended, by cooperating fully with the new arms inspectors.
The sanctions were imposed in August 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait and can be removed only when the council is satisfied that Iraq has destroyed all its weapons of mass destruction – Albawaba.com
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