Powell presents case to persuade reluctant allies that Iraq thwarting United Nations

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary of State Colin Powell, making his case that Iraq had evaded demands that it disarm, played an audio tape for the U.N. Security Council Wednesday between Iraqi military officers purportedly discussing hiding prohibited vehicles form weapons inspectors.\n"Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction," Powell said.\nPowell, citing human intelligence sources, said the U.S. has information the Iraqis are dispersing rockets armed with biological weapons in western Iraq.\nPowell said Iraq's actions were part of a "policy of evasion and deception" that Iraq has practiced for years.\nHe told the Security Council that the tape he played was an intercepted conversation between a general and a colonel in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.\nThe voices on the tape were discussing a modified vehicle one of them had in his possession that was made by an Iraqi company that Powell said was a weapons manufacturer.\n"We have this modified vehicle," one of them said as the two discussed a pending visit by a U.N. weapons inspector.\n"I'm worried you all have something left," the second voice says.\n"We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left," the other replies.\nPowell also presented declassified satellite pictures as he sought to persuade a mostly skeptical Council that Iraq continues to defy disarmament demands. He said photographs were of 15 munitions bunkers and that four of them had active chemical munitions inside.\nSaddam, in an interview broadcast Tuesday in London, denied his government has a relationship with the al-Qaida or has weapons of mass destruction. He said it would be impossible to hide such arms.\n"If we had a relationship with al-Qaida, and we believed in that relationship, we wouldn't be ashamed to admit it," the Iraqi leader said.\nMost U.S. allies, including France and Germany, want more time for U.N. weapons inspectors to do their work in Iraq. But President Bush and his top national security aides have said repeatedly that the United States will forcibly disarm Iraq if it does not immediately comply with U.N. resolutions requiring it to rid itself of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.\nPowell, showing satellite photos, said that two days before the inspections began, trucks arrived at close to 30 missile sites and removed material. He said "we don't know precisely what Iraq was moving."\nPowell referred specifically to two photographs, one taken Nov. 10 of a ballistic missile site and another taken Nov. 25 showing a truck caravan at what he said was a biological weapons facility.\nThose trucks were "something we almost never see at this facility and we monitor it carefully and regularly," he asserted.\nAs he opened his presentation, Powell reminded the Council that it had voted unanimously last Nov. 8 for a resolution that "gave Iraq one last chance to come into compliance or to face serious consequences."\n"No Council member present...had any illusion...what serious consequences meant," he said.\nGerman Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer presided over the session.\nIraq's ambassador, Mohammed Al-Douri, was invited by Fischer to take a seat at the large circular Security Council table to listen to Powell's presentation and to make remarks afterward. As he headed into the chamber, he was asked what message he would be delivering. "It's a message for peace," Al-Douri said.\n"I believe the conclusion is irreparable and undeniable," Powell declared. "Iraq has now put itself in danger of the serious consequences called for in U.N. resolution 1441 and this body places itself in danger of irrelevancy if it allows Iraq to continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately.\nHe said Saddam has been hiding Iraqi scientists and weapons experts from inspection teams and said a dozen of them are now being held under house arrest "at one of Saddam Hussein's guest houses."\n"This is all part of a system of hiding things and moving things out of the way and making sure they have left nothing behind," Powell said.\nFollowing a White House breakfast that Bush had with congressional leaders in advance of Powell's presentation, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said: "If I had this evidence before a jury that was an unbiased jury, I could get a conviction."\nBiden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said "we're talking about a different stage. (Powell) has a tougher jury and there is a lot of skepticism that exists in the international community."\nFischer, who presided over the Council meeting, said he believes that war against Iraq can be avoided. Speaking to German television ZDF hours before Powell was to present new evidence, he said the goals of U.N. Resolution 1441 could be achieved without military action if the weapons inspectors are given more time.\n"When one considers the risks of military action, not just the humanitarian consequences for innocent people but also the question of regional destabilization and the long-term consequences for the anti-terror coalition, then one must make very careful considerations," he said.\nBiden joined more than a dozen other Democratic and Republican lawmakers for breakfast with President Bush, who sketched out his case against Saddam hours before Powell's presentation. Lawmakers in both parties have accused the White House of failing to keep them informed of developments on Iraq.\nAs U.S. military forces continued their buildup in the Persian Gulf region, Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix warned Saddam on Tuesday that it's "five minutes to midnight."\nMost U.S. allies want more time for U.N. weapons inspectors to do their work in Iraq. Bush and his top national security aides have said repeatedly that the United States will forcibly disarm Iraq if it does not immediately comply with U.N. resolutions requiring it to rid itself of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.\n"This issue will come to a head in a matter of weeks, not months," Bush said last week.