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U.K. prepared for war: Hoon

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON NOV. 10. It is all hands on the trigger even before Iraq has responded to the U.N. Security Council's do-or-die resolution with the British Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, declaring that Britain is ready for war if Baghdad defies the U.N.'s orders.

His remarks in a TV interview on Sunday morning came amid reports that up to 20,000 British troops were being readied to move to the Gulf ahead of a possible U.S. military intervention in Iraq. "We are prepared,'' Mr. Hoon said firmly, recalling the Prime Minister, Tony Blair's warning that it was important to disarm Iraq, if necessary by force, if it did not cooperate with the U.N. Resolution.

Media reports said that a contingent of Britain's 7th armoured brigade, known as the Desert Rats, was prepared to join the U.S. standby forces in the Gulf, most probably Kuwait, and an official announcement was expected within days. The build-up, according to identical newspaper reports attributed to official sources, was likely to coincide with the start of "spot checks'' of Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction by the U.N. weapons' inspectors.

The British media also highlighted a New York Times report on plans for a joint Anglo-U.S. attack on Iraq without fresh authorisation from the U.N. Security Council if the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, failed to comply with Friday's unanimous Resolution. ``The plan envisages four U.S. divisions plus one U.K. armoured division and planners are working around two attack dates, one for early January and a second for late February,'' the Observer said, adding that British troops were likely to get "provisional" deployment orders next week.

Britain is claiming credit for neutralising the "hawks" in the Pentagon and persuading the U.S. President, George W. Bush, to take the U.N. "route'', but the official view now is that this is as far as Washington could be persuaded to go.

The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has virtually ruled out a second U.N. Security Council Resolution specifically authorising military action. He told Parliament this week, "We have always made it clear that we have reserved our own right to take action within the existing body of the U.N. Security Council Resolutions...''

But in an indication that Mr. Blair still faces opposition in the Cabinet on the issue, the Secretary for International Development, Clare Short, has again warned against military action without a U.N. mandate. Ms. Short, who has been a consistent critic of Mr. Blair's unreserved support for U.S. war aims in Iraq, said it was "essential to keep the international community together and to operate through the United Nations.''

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