BUSH STANCE ON IRAQ CRUMBLING
Source: The Mirror (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12106289&method=full&siteid=50143)
[Hermit: Not one of my usual sources, as they are seldom particularly rigorous, but the combinatiuon of information in here is interesting and I don't have the time to do a complete post]
Authors: Paul Gilfeather
Dated: 2002-08-11
A LEADING Republican yesterday warned President Bush against war with Iraq.
Bush ally Dick Armey declared: "My own view would be to let Saddam Hussein bluster, let him rant and rave all he wants.
"As long as he behaves himself within his own borders we should not be addressing any attack or resources against him."
Yesterday, the US public said Bush should not attack Iraq without support from other countries. And the president also came under fire for his treatment of prisoners held in the war on terror.
As the Daily Mirror reported this week, Mr Bush is already showing signs of wobbling over a possible war with Iraq.
Mr Armey, a Texan and the most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, said: "If we try to act against Saddam Hussein, as obnoxious as he is, without proper provocation, we will not have the support of other nation states who might otherwise do so."
White House hawks feared the outburst could start a domino effect as public support for an attack crumbles. A poll for CBS News in America showed two-thirds of voters said President Bush must build support with allies before acting. The same percentage only backed action against Iraq with congressional approval.
Polls in Britain show strong opposition to any British involvement in a US-led attack on Iraq - and Tony Blair could face hostile debates at the annual conferences of the TUC and the Labour Party in Blackpool.
In Washington, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, admitted that intelligence on Saddam's weapons capability was vague. He said: "Obviously new intelligence isn't perfect but what we are certain of is that he has a great interest in chemical and biological weapons, conducts research and development into those systems."
Meanwhile, America's top lawyers told President Bush that there must be new safeguards to protect the rights of prisoners.
The 400,000-strong American Bar Association set up a six-man task force to review policy after the September 11 attacks.
Their report says: "While we must have the means to prevent more attacks like those of September 11, we must also ensure that there are sufficient safeguards to protect the innocent and prevent possible abuses of power.
"It cannot be sufficient for a President to claim that the government can detain whoever it wants, whenever it wants, for as long as it wants, as long as the detention bears some relationship to a terrorist act once committed by somebody against the United States."
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26030>
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