-Caveat Lector- http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer? pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035780018158 &call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154 Weight of the war takes toll on Bush
U.S. president shows irritation Iraq campaign may take months LINDA DIEBEL IN WASHINGTON Not much is going according to plan in Iraq for the U.S. administration and the pressure showed yesterday, from an irritated president and hunkered- down defence secretary to a U.N. ambassador storming out of a meeting. "However long it takes to win," snapped U.S. President George W. Bush, when asked how long the war ? now predicted to last months ? will continue. "However long it takes to achieve our objectives," repeated a tired- looking Bush, thumping the lectern. He met with reporters at the conclusion of a two-day war council with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, not far from Washington. "That's the answer to your question and that's what you've got to know. "It isn't a matter of a timetable, it's a matter of victory," said Bush. "And the Iraqi people have got to know that ? see?" Blair, Bush's staunchest ally in the war, compared today's war with World War II and the battle against Germany's Adolf Hitler. "For nearly a century, the United States and Great Britain have been allies in the defence of liberty," said Blair. "We shared in a costly and heroic struggle against Nazism." Yesterday, the Washington Post quoted "senior U.S. military officers" saying the war could last months and require far more firepower than even this week's hastily revised Pentagon plan to rush 30,000 more troops to Iraq. Last night, the Pentagon announced another 120,000 troops will start to deploy next week. And Bush also faced increasing criticism from Democrats yesterday over how the U.S. is going to pay for this war. Earlier in the week, the White House sent an urgent request to Congress for $74.5 billion (U.S.) in supplemental war spending ? a number based on White House calculations that Operation Iraqi Freedom could be fought and won in 30 days. After that, Bush has to go back to Congress to ask for more. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sweated it out on Capitol Hill yesterday, defending the $74-billion price tag before the Senate appropriations committee holding the purse strings. Rumsfeld, looking as tired as Bush, declared the funding is critical to stop Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's death squads from retaliating against civilians. "They left somebody in the centre of Baghdad not too long ago with his tongue pulled out until he had bled to death ? cut his tongue out," said Rumsfeld. Despite the horrific allegations, the senators' questions over money remained acerbic. "I don't support giving a blank cheque to any administration," West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, ranking Democrat on the appropriations committee, told Rumsfeld. Byrd, the oldest voice in the U.S. Congress, is a leading opponent of the war. "Today, I weep for my country," he'd said, four hours before war began on March. 19. "I have no idea what some countries may propose. But there isn't going to be a ceasefire," Rumsfeld told committee members. At the same meeting, deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Turkey's government "didn't quite know what it was doing" in failing to win parliamentary approval to allow U.S. troops the right to use its territory to invade Iraq. He described Turkey's decision as a "big, big mistake," but also acknowledged the U.S. had asked a lot, and noted Turkey had granted overflight rights to U.S. planes. Later, Rumsfeld's leading policy adviser Richard Perle, an administration hawk, abruptly resigned over a long simmering controversy about his business dealings. The resignation appeared to indicate the growing strain on Rumsfeld's clout in cabinet. But there's no split between Rumsfeld and Bush: the president had uttered the same shocking allegation of Iraqi atrocities as his defence minister, at the earlier Bush- Blair press conference. "We had reports the other day of a dissident who had his tongue cut out and was tied to the stake in the town square, and he bled to death. That's how Saddam Hussein retains power," Bush said. "His sons are brutal, brutal people. They're barbaric in nature. So I'm not surprised he's committing crimes against our soldiers. ``I'm not surprised to hear stories about his thugs killing their own citizens and trying to blame it on coalition forces ... If he uses weapons of mass destruction, that will just prove our case. And we will deal with it." Bush offered no evidence yesterday as to when the atrocities occurred, or where. As well yesterday, there were still no images of the much-needed and massive quantities of humanitarian aid reaching the Iraqi people ? only shots of small distributions of food and water in the south, and footage, becoming all too familiar, of Iraqi civilian casualties. And there were no signs, despite a plea from Canadian U.N. Ambassador Paul Heinbecker, that the United Nations can put aside its bitter differences to come to the aid of Iraqi civilians. At the U.N. yesterday, the Security Council battled over releasing billions of dollars in humanitarian money for Iraq from an oil-for-food program which uses the country's own resources to supply food aid. That aid, which fed 60 per cent of Iraq's 26 million people, was suspended with the start of the war. John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., walked out of the Security Council after Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri accused the U.S. of leading a war to wipe out the Iraqi people. "I'd heard enough," said Negroponte. Aldouri charged that the U.S. had arranged for contracts to rebuild Iraq in 1997, six years before the U.S.- led war began last week. Almost spluttering, he said the United States now was using the issue of humanitarian aid to hide its "criminal aggression" and accused "Britain and the United States (of being) about to start a real war of extermination that will kill everything and destroy everything." "I don't accept any of the allegations," Negroponte said. Heinbecker urged the U.N. to focus on the plight of Iraqis, and appealed to Persian Gulf countries to allow unfettered access to aid workers trying to reach the war-torn country. "We have already begun to see the potential implications of the humanitarian crisis ... and we know the longer and more destructive the war, the greater the needs will be," he told a public session of the Security Council. "The government of Canada had hoped that a compromise would be possible and that the Iraqi regime would be disarmed without war," said Heinbecker. "But war is here ... our main concern must be the plight of the casualties of war." At the Security Council, members are bogged down in the same hostilities that marked the failure to reach a compromise solution on disarming Saddam before war began last week. Russia and Syria oppose any immediate role for the U.S. and Britain to help co-ordinate the humanitarian program, casting doubt on future U.N. ability to help rebuild Iraq. There has been concern, including behind-the-scenes comments by British officials, about U.S, plans to dominate in post-war Iraq, whenever that may be. Yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said bluntly that the U.S. could allow only a limited role for the U.N. "We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have a significant dominating control over how it unfolds in the future," he told a congressional committee. "We would not support ... essentially handing everything over to the U.N. for someone designated by the U.N. to suddenly become in charge of this whole operation," said Powell. At Camp David yesterday, Blair underscored British problems with the U.S. on this issue by telling reporters that he and Bush agreed on "principles ... (but there) are huge numbers of details to be discussed with our allies as to exactly how that is going to work." "No doubt, the United Nations has got to be closely involved in this process," said Blair. Additional articles by Linda Diebel FAQs| Site Map| Privacy Policy| Webmaster| Subscribe| My Subscription Home| GTA| Business| Waymoresports| A&E| Life Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. Forwarded for your information. 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