Iraq poses an increasing threat that must be met, the defense chiefs of the United States and Britain said Wednesday, showing growing impatience with Saddam Hussein.
"We know that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq has had a sizable appetite for weapons of mass destruction" and is finding ways to acquire the ingredients, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said. "We know the borders into that country are quite porous," he added, allowing Iraq to import technologies with applications in both civilian and military industries as well as illicit materials. "There is not a doubt in the world that with every month that goes by their programs mature," he said.
Rumsfeld spoke at a joint news conference with British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon after meetings to discuss Iraq and other issues.
In Washington on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said his fellow Democrats support a push to unseat Saddam. "The question is when and how and under what circumstances," Daschle said, according to AP. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he had cautioned Bush that any major attack would require a U.S. presence for two to five years, to keep battling factions away from each other.
"I reminded him, there's a reason why your father stopped and didn't go to Baghdad. It wasn't that he wasn't able to. He wasn't prepared to stay for five years," Biden said after meeting with Bush at the White House. (Albawaba.com)
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