MIDEAST: Citing intelligence that Iraq is accelerating its efforts to produce non-conventional weapons, Israel is pushing the US not to delay military action aimed at toppling President Saddam Hussein, and the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, has reportedly sent messages to the Americans in recent days urging them not to put off a strike, writes Peter Hirschberg, in Jerusalem.
"Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose," Mr Ra'anan Gissin, an aide to Mr Sharon, said yesterday, pointing to a recent order the Iraqi dictator gave to his atomic energy commission to step up its work. "It will only give him more of an opportunity to accelerate his programme of weapons of mass destruction."
Mr Sharon's message to the Bush administration, the daily Ha'aretz newspaper reported yesterday, said that delaying an assault on President Saddam "will not create a more convenient environment for action in the future."
The Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, told CNN in an interview this week that, while a US strike against Iraq now would be "quite dangerous . . . postponing it would be more dangerous." Both Mr Sharon and Mr Peres stressed that they were not trying to dictate US moves or the exact timing of a strike.
Analysts in Israel believe that the US will ultimately launch a military campaign, but that it is not imminent. During the 1991 Gulf War, President Saddam rained down several dozen missiles on Israeli cities, but none of them contained biological or chemical warheads. An opinion survey published yesterday showed some 57 per cent of Israelis supported a US strike against Iraq, even though 58 per cent said they believed this would result in Iraq again attacking Israel.
In the West Bank, the Israeli army captured a Palestinian man overnight on Thursday who is believed responsible for the shooting of a baby last year in the Jewish enclave of the divided West Bank city of Hebron.
Israel continued its controversial policy of house demolitions in the West Bank, destroying the home of an Islamic Jihad activist, Mr Iyad Sawalha, who Israel says was responsible for a suicide car-bomb attack in the north of the country two months ago in which 17 people were killed.
President Bush responded to criticism of his Iraq policy from within his own Republican Party by saying he would consult with others but make decisions based on the "latest intelligence". "We'll continue to consult . . . But Americans need to know I'll be making up my mind based upon the latest intelligence and how best to protect our own country, plus our friends and allies." - (Reuters)