Bush administration officials said yesterday that the United States currently has no plans to attack North Korea, Iran or Iraq, despite U.S. President George W. Bush’s warning Tuesday (Sipress/Ricks, Washington Post, Jan. 31).

The president said the United States would not allow terrorists or their state sponsors to threaten the United States or its allies, and he indicated that he would take action soon (see GSN I, Jan. 30).

“I will not wait on events, while dangers gather.  I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer,” Bush said (see GSN II, Jan. 30).  He listed North Korea, Iran and Iraq as states that pursue weapons of mass destruction (White House transcript, Jan. 29).  

Bush was not signaling that U.S. military action is “imminent,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer yesterday.  Instead, the comments expressed “how serious the president takes protecting our country,” he added.

Several Defense Department officials also said yesterday that no plans are in the works for imminent action.

“It would be news to us,” said a defense official familiar with military planning.

The United States is considering action, however, in parts of the world besides Afghanistan where al-Qaeda could be active, said another defense official.

“We’re looking more at Somalia, the Philippines, places like that,” the official said.

Dealing with Iraq

It is unlikely the United States would attack Iran or North Korea, analysts and officials said.  Although the administration has been concerned about Iraq, officials have not started to discuss seriously whether the United States should attack Iraq or increase support to Iraqi opposition groups, administration officials said.

Some defense officials tried last year to persuade the Bush administration to work on overthrowing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but the administration decided to postpone any decisions at the time, according to the Washington Post  (see GSN, Dec. 19, 2001). 

A U.S. war against Iraq could take weeks or months to begin and could require 200,000 U.S. troops, officials and analysts said (see GSN, Jan. 7).

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department decided to provide $2.4 million to the opposition Iraqi National Congress over the next three months after meetings yesterday between INC leaders and State Department officials.  The United States had frozen INC funding due to accounting disputes (Sipress/Ricks, Washington Post, Jan. 31).

The INC praised Bush’s tough talk.  “We were very, very encouraged by the president’s speech here yesterday on Iraq,” said INC spokesman Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein (Robin Wright, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 31).

WMD as Important as Terrorism

Bush’s inclusion of countries pursuing weapons of mass destruction with terrorists in the “axis of evil” indicated that Bush now considers weapons of mass destruction to pose as great a threat as terrorism, particularly since Iraq and North Korea have little connection to terrorism (see GSN, Oct. 23, 2001), the Post reported.  “This was a pretty clear signal that the overlap between the campaign against terrorism and opposition to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is nearly complete,” said a senior administration official.

Nonproliferation Efforts — Military and Otherwise

The Bush administration was pursuing nonmilitary means to counter the threats from the three countries, including diplomatic and technical controls to prevent the countries from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, administration officials said.  “Military power is obviously one element of national power.  But I warn that the United States is not going to have a one-size-fits-all policy here,” said a senior administration official.  “We would make a mistake to assume the president is saying, ‘I’m going to repeat Afghanistan everywhere else in the world.’”

The United States would continue attempts to conduct dialogues with Iran and North Korea about ways to address U.S. weapons of mass destruction concerns, administration officials said.  Bush has not offered to have a dialogue with Iraq.

“You try to choke off the development of weapons of mass destruction,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.  “You can do that through a discussion with governments and countries, if they’re prepared to abandon these programs and open themselves up to international [nuclear] inspectors, for example, or in the case of Iraq, open themselves up to fully comply with U.N. resolutions” (Sipress/Ricks, Washington Post, Jan. 31).

The Bush administration also intends to continue efforts to negotiate a deal to end North Korean production and export of ballistic missiles (see GSN, Jan. 15) and to continue dialogue with Iran on weapons of mass destruction issues, administration officials said.  Bush would also continue to demand that Iraq allow weapon inspectors to return (see GSN, Jan. 28). 

“The president emphasized his determination on this issue but did not change current efforts or U.S. strategy,” a senior administration official said yesterday (Wright, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 31).

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