#4
Russians sees chinks in Powell report but concedes Iraq war certain
February 6, 2003
AFP

Russians took a skeptical view Thursday of new US "evidence" that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction while still conceding that global sentiment was shifting in favor of strikes against Baghdad.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday presented the UN Security Council with declassified information that he said proved Iraqi leaders were "concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction."

His briefing led Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to issue a prepared statement in New York declaring that the burden of proof on disarmament was now laying squarely on the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. But Ivanov stuck firmly to Moscow's official line that UN weapons inspections in Iraq should continue, a view echoed by China and France, which like Russia are veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council.

And both state and private media in Moscow stuck to an often caustic line.

"The United States failed to achieve its main goal -- to win new allies," declared Russia's state-run Rossiya television network in a morning news bulletin.

"After the UN Security Council session, the balance of power among nations who are for and against the use of force remained the same," it said.

"What Powell said is little more than specualtion," agreed Andrei Nikolayev, head of the lower house of parliament's defense committee.

"Even if weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq, this is still no reason to go to war," he said.

Vremya Novostei daily -- which media analysts suspect has close ties to President Vladimir Putin's administration -- suggested Powell's report had mostly succeeded in splitting the world into two camps.

"Powell's speech completely splintered the international community," the paper said in a front-page banner headline.

"Powell spoke colorfully but not very convincingly, even though he spoke for over an hour," it opined.

And the Vedomosti business daily concluded Powell's proof "remains, as before, indirect."

But it noted his speech had caused the euro to slide slightly against the dollar -- which it interpreted as a sign of weakening European resistance to a US-led military campaign.

Russia has been treading a careful diplomatic line over Iraq, between its close alliance with the US-led "war on terror" and Soviet-era ties to Baghdad which include massive investments in the country's oil industry.

Moscow argues that a new UN resolution is necessary to win global legitimacy for an attack on Iraq. It also insists that a new UN vote is required by the most recent UN Security Council vote on Iraqi disarmament -- resolution 1441 -- which was approved unanimously by Council members.

Powerful Russian lawmakers meanwhile said Washington was pushing Saddam into a corner with its tough line and leaving few incentives for Baghdad to cooperate with inspectors.

"Saddam is actually facing a choice between dying and dying in heroic resistance. He has been offered no other alternative," said deputy lower house of parliament speaker Vladimir Lukin, Moscow's former ambassador to Washington.

The latest public opinion poll released Thursday showed 60 percent of Russians believed that war was imminent while 61 percent said Moscow should stay neutral once a conflict breaks out.

Political analysts said Moscow remained indecisive in its diplomacy because Putin was squeezed between a close alliance with Washington on the one hand and intense pressure to resist war from Russia's anxious military hawks.

"Russia's military establishment has strong anti-US views and demands to know how much more Putin intends to cede to Washington without gaining anything in return," said Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of Moscow's USA-Canada Institute.

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