Top White House officials on Sunday did not rule out the possibility that Iraq might also be subject to US military action in the campaign against terrorism, according to a CNN report.
But they indicated that the Bush administration's priority was targeting Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for playing host to the suspected terrorist, it added.
"The president made clear in his speech on Thursday night that this is a broad campaign," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on CNN's program Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.
"Now, there has to be an initial phase to this campaign. And the initial phase focuses on the Al Qaeda network and the country that harbors them most nearly, which is the Taliban and Afghanistan."
As the campaign unfolds, Rice said, the administration would "look at where terrorism exists ... and go after all of those bases for terrorism."
Some lawmakers have called on the United States to include Iraq in any military action, believing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has supported terrorist acts against America, the news service added.
Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, said he believed American forces may be "right close" to such an attack.
Speaking on CNN, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, would not say whether he believed Iraq had a role in the September 11 attacks against the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
"The only thing I would say is we should not leave out and we have not left out where any of this leads to," said Shelby, cited by CNN.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has said there is no hard evidence yet that Iraq played a direct role in the September 11 attacks in which four commercial jets were hijacked and deliberately crashed.
"Well, there are some reports of linkages, but not to the extent that I would say today there is a clear link. But we're looking for links and we're watching it very, very carefully," Powell was quoted as saying on NBC's Meet the Press.
Powell said that Hussein had long been considered "a potential source of terrorist activity" and stressed the United States would take "no options off the table."
"We have no illusions about Saddam Hussein," Powell said. "He means us no good. He means the region no good. ... And, as you know, we always have the ability to strike if that seems to be the appropriate thing."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld offered similar comments and hinted the US approach to Iraq might hinge on that country's future behavior as it relates to terrorism, the news service said.
"This is not an Afghan problem; this is a worldwide problem of terrorist networks. And let there be no doubt about it, that Al Qaeda network is in at least 60 countries, and they are just one of many networks," Rumsfeld was quoted as saying on CBS' Face the Nation.
He cited Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea and Cuba as nations that have "harbored and assisted terrorist organizations."
"As the president said, what we're looking at today is how are those states going to behave going forward," Rumsfeld said.
IRAQ EXPECTS TO BE ATTACKED
Iraq also has no illusions that the US may be targetting the Arab country, which is already hit by sanctions and subject to periodic airstrikes.
Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said in remarks published Sunday that his country could be a target of US strikes carried out in retaliation for the devastating terrorist attacks.
"Everything is possible," Ramadan said when asked if Iraq could be a target of US reprisals.
"That's nothing new for Iraq, which has been confronted for 11 years by an even bigger US-led coalition," he said, cited by AFP.
Iraq has warned of global war and raised fears of a major air campaign against the country amid attempts by Western intelligence agencies to establish a link between Baghdad and the US terror attacks.
Ramadan stressed that Iraq was not involved in the attacks "directly or indirectly, and the US administration has no proof otherwise."
Israel's military intelligence chief said Sunday that Iraq was not involved in the terror attacks.
"I have not found any direct links between Iraq and the plane hijackings and terrorist attacks in the United States," General Amos Malka told the Yediot Aharonot, cited by the agency.
Ramadan also blasted the almost-daily US and British strikes on Iraq as unlawful because they fell outside "international resolutions."
"They say that Iraq puts US and British planes in danger as if those planes were flying over New York or Washington."
Terrorists flew hijacked aircraft into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11, leaving thousands of people presumed dead.
In the aftermath, US President George W. Bush has vowed a sustained military campaign targeting not just terrorist organizations but their sanctuaries and the states that harbor them.
However, "The 11-year-long US aggression and the unjust embargo that Washington persists in maintaining will never shake the will of the Iraqi people" to resist the United States, Ramadan said.
Speaking at the opening of the annual Babylon cultural festival, in the presence of intellectuals from more than 30 Asian and European countries, Ramadan blasted the "offensive, the hardest in history, launched against Iraq by the United States and its ally, Zionism." - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
