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News Analysis

• With US and British troops ready to roll and the UN starting to withdraw civilian staff from the Iraq-Kuwait border, the war on Saddam is only days away.
  
  
• Bush delivered a speech to convince Iraqis that Saddam will be removed - this guarantees that the Iraqi army and people will no longer fear Saddam when military action starts and therefore they will not fight for him.
  
  
• Saddam's regime, in an effort to maintain their delay tactics, vowed to hand over anthrax report but only after Blix's report to the Security Council, which gave a picture of mixed cooperation.
  
  
• The UK revised the draft resolution giving Saddam a deadline of March 17. France, Russia and China threaten to block the resolution which could mean either:
  1. One of these countries, most probably France, will veto the resolution. If there are 9 votes supporting the resolution, the UK and US will cite this as an unreasonable veto going against the will of the Security Council.
  2. These countries will work to try and make sure that the US and UK do not get the 9 votes required to pass the resolution, thus avoiding the need to use their veto.
     

  It is almost impossible that Russia or China will use their veto, which leaves only France. The fact that France is frantically going around the African countries on the Security Council trying to convince them to vote against the resolution, suggests that they are not really prepared to use their veto and are actually going down the second route.

• Bush re-emphasised that the upcoming war is about regime change and vowed to establish democracy in Iraq. At the same time the US is preparing for the biggest relief aid programme in its history, aiming to coordinate and distribute water, rations and medicines; and to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure after many years of neglect by Saddam. Tony Blair shed light on the fate of Iraqi oil, saying that any oil funds will be secured in a UN bank account. There are also suggestions that the UN will have a key role in a post-Saddam Iraq, forming a civilian government during the transition period – aimed at minimising US military rule.