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No new UN resolution required, Bush says President doesn't believe Saddam will heed ultimatum BARRY SCHWEID ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - Iraq must fully disarm to avoid war, U.S. President George W. Bush said today, as he urged the United Nations to "honour its word" and back U.S. action against Saddam Hussein. Amid diplomatic wrangling over a U.S.-British-Spanish resolution declaring that Saddam has missed his chance for peace, the president said it would be helpful to pass the measure "but I don't believe we need a second resolution." The State Department declined to provide a headcount of how much support there was for the new resolution. Also, spokesman Philip Reeker said Iraq was disclosing only "dribs and drabs" of huge caches of hidden weapons and was still refusing to disarm. In a brief exchange with reporters, Bush was asked what it would take to avoid war. "Full disarmament," he replied tersely. Asked to expand on the answer, the president said: "Well, there's only one thing: it's full disarmament. The man has been told to disarm. For the sake of peace, he must completely disarm." He predicted that Saddam would try to "fool the world one more time," by revealing the existence of weapons that he has previously denied having. "We expect the Security Council to honour its word by insisting that Saddam disarm. Now's the time," Bush said after a meeting with his economic team. He is timing his drive for UN backing against Iraq to the next report by UN weapons inspectors, hoping that it will convince the Security Council that force may be the only way to disarm Saddam. The report is due Saturday, but chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei are not expected to appear to answer council questions until March 7. The United States and its partners, Britain and Spain, plan to push for a council vote soon afterward. Before the president spoke, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said there was still "a slim chance" that international pressure would force Iraq to disarm and avoid war. "There remains an off-ramp," the press secretary said. "The off-ramp will be taken or not taken as a result of Saddam Hussein's actions." Fleischer also called the Iraqis' discovery of a filled aerial bomb, as reported in a letter to Blix, "the very nature of the problem with Iraq - that all of a sudden will start to discover weapons" they said they never had. He added: "The United Nations inspectors, when they left the country, said there were 400 such weapons unaccounted for. Now we found one - where are the other 399? How much time does Saddam Hussein want to dribble those out?" Later, Bush declined to specify the sacrifices facing U.S. troops, their families and the American public in the event the United States goes to war, other than saying that soldiers would be put in harm's way against what he said is a brutal dictator. Asked about the cost of war, Bush did not offer any estimates. He did say he believes that doing nothing is a greater risk. Meanwhile, the U.S. army's top general said a military occupying force for a postwar Iraq could total several hundred thousand soldiers. Iraq is "a piece of geography that's fairly significant," Gen. Eric Shinseki said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he said any postwar occupying force would have to be big enough to maintain safety in a country with "ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems." In response to questioning by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the committee, Shinseki said he couldn't give specific numbers of the size of an occupation force but would rely on the recommendations of commanders in the region. "How about a range?" said Levin. "I would say that what's been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers," the general said. "Assistance from friends and allies would be helpful." Earlier, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Iraq's chemical and biological weapons are more advanced now than they were during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "They are, in my judgment, more lethal and dangerous today than they would have been in '91, but I don't know that for sure," he said Tuesday. Iraq has several kinds of remote-controlled aircraft which could be used to deliver biological or chemical weapons, Rumsfeld said during a speech to the Hoover Institution, a conservative think-tank associated with Stanford University. Those "unmanned aerial vehicles" could be guided by satellite or set on a pre-programmed course to reach targets hundreds of kilometres away, Rumsfeld said. In Baghdad, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz insisted Tuesday that the government had not yet decided whether to destroy its Al Samoud 2 missiles, despite a TV interview in which Saddam appeared to reject compliance with the UN demand. "Readiness for the aggression is continuing... but this doesn't mean that we should stop our political and diplomatic work," Aziz said. "We should continue with it, but we should also prepare ourselves for the battle." Both Iraqi and UN officials spoke of new, substantive co-operation. UN inspectors visited a pit where Iraq says it destroyed biological weapons in 1991, and Iraq reported finding an R-400 bomb containing liquid at a disposal site. "We have made some progress. In fact, we have made some breakthroughs," said Lt.-Gen. Amer al-Saadi, Saddam's adviser on the inspections. Iraq appeared to be sending conflicting messages over the UN order to destroy Al Samouds and their components by the end of the week because the missiles can fly farther than allowed. The missiles are still being produced and tested, the inspectors' spokesman in Baghdad, Hiro Ueki, said Tuesday. He said the last test took place Monday. In a CBS-TV interview with Saddam, the Iraqi president reportedly indicated he won't heed the demand. The network issued quotes from its three-hour interview, with Saddam saying he did not have missiles that went beyond the range limit set by the UN, and that his country was allowed to have "proper missiles." Saddam also challenged Bush to a live debate, the network reported, but the White House said the president did not take the suggestion seriously. CBS said it didn't have the tapes of the interview yet because Iraqi television wanted to translate them and make copies. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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