U.S. Increases Diplomatic, Military Pressure on Iraq

The discussions came as American fighter jets bombed sites in Iraq’s northern and southern no-fly zones.

Hours before the meeting, a senior Saudi official said the regional power was opposed to military action against Iraq.

“There is a diplomatic process that is going on and we should pursue that,” Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi foreign policy adviser, said on CNN. “We don’t believe that the case has been made in terms of a war against Iraq and we don’t think that people have thought through all the consequences.”

The Texas summit comes a day after Vice President Dick Cheney warned, “The risks of inaction [in Iraq] are far greater than the risk of action.”

Cheney said Iraq’s continued weapons programs pose too great a risk to be ignored.

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,” the vice president said at a meeting of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors — confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth.”

Cheney concluded the threat made pre-emptive action against Iraq necessary, noting former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had recently made the same argument.

“What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness,” Cheney said. “We will not simply look away, hope for the best, and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve. As President Bush has said, ‘Time is not on our side.'”

Iraq’s vice president rejected Cheney’s warning, saying the American statements did not bother him.

“We could not care less about the threats that are out there. Iraq has a long history with these threats and such despotism,” Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan said after meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “[Cheney’s] position can only express the depth of rancor and hatred for the Arab and Muslim nations.”

The diplomatic back-and-forth came as U.S. warplanes struck a radar site in a northern Iraq “no-fly” zone and an air defense command facility in southern Iraq.

Pentagon officials said the planes had attacked the sites after Iraq’s military had targeted U.S. and British jets policing the two no-fly zones.

The United States European Command in Germany said all Western jets left the area safely after engaging the sites.