Mr Bush's address to the Banqueting House in Whitehall cites "multilateralism" as one of the three pillars of a more secure world. For Washington hawks, multilateralism is a bogey word, but they will note that Mr Bush will preface it with "effective". The second pillar is more in tune with recent Bush Administration foreign policy, arguing that "there are times when countries must use force to defend peace and to defend values". The third pillar is the spread of democracy, broadly reflecting the view of the hawkish neo-conservatives in Washington. But a senior Administration official said Mr Bush would not explicitly cite the promotion of democracy as a ground for going to war. It could not simply be imposed "from the outside, or out of the barrel of a gun". "He will just note that there are times when it is necessary, when other means have not brought results," the official said. "And I think that obviously this is not a tool that one uses lightly."
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/19/1069027192136.html Meanwhile... The United States military plans this week to conduct its final developmental test on the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal, a weapon so big it is dubbed the "mother of all bombs," (...) The Air Force plans to detonate a 9800kg satellite-guided GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, or MOAB, on Thursday at Eglin Air Force Base in the panhandle of northwestern Florida, said Jake Swinson, a spokesman for the Air Armament Centre at the base. The huge conventional bomb will be dropped from an MC-130 Combat Talon cargo plane onto a test range at the base, Swinson said. "This is the last development test," Swinson said, noting that the massive bomb will then become available for use as US military commanders deem appropriate. Swinson said the bomb had undergone "a few minor modifications". The MOAB has had just one previous live test when it was detonated at the same base on March 11, the week before the US-led invasion of Iraq, producing a large, mushroom-like cloud. There were two previous inert tests of the bomb, Swinson said. The MOAB spreads a flammable mist over the target, then ignites it, producing a highly destructive blast. The Air Force has created it as a successor to the 6800kg BLU-82 "Daisy Cutter," with some inside the military dubbing the MOAB the "mother of all bombs." The "Daisy Cutter" was originally designed to clear helicopter landing zones in Vietnam. It was used in an bid to clear mines and for psychological effect against Iraqi forces during the Gulf War in 1992, and used in 2001 in Afghanistan on tunnels thought to be the hide-outs of al Qaeda figures. Swinson said the latest test had been scheduled for Tuesday, but was postponed until Thursday because of poor weather conditions. Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3534978&thesection=news&t hesubsection=world
