DATE=1/17/01

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

NUMBER=5-48798

TITLE=BUSH/IRAQ POLICY

BYLINE=NICK SIMEONE

DATELINE= WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: President-elect George W. Bush will take office Saturday with some of the same people in his cabinet who led the war against Iraq a decade ago. V-O-A's Nick Simeone tells us Iraq could prove to be one of the first major foreign policy challenges facing Mr. Bush, a decade after his father led the coalition that drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

TEXT: Next month, the U-N Security Council will review the issue of getting weapons inspectors back on the job in Iraq. It has been more than two-years since the inspectors left the country when Baghdad denied them access to sites suspected of containing banned chemical and biological weapons.

Ambassador Richard Butler headed the U-N team of weapons inspectors during the final years of the Clinton Administration.

/// BUTLER ACT ///

The Iraq problem will be on George W. Bush, the 43rd president, on his table, front and center, in a matter of weeks. It is there, it is real and he will have to deal with it.

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Mr. Butler has watched sanctions against Iraq as well as the will of Security Council members to keep them in place dissolve. Meanwhile, ordinary Iraqis blame their plight not on Saddam Hussein but on the United Nations, and in particular the United States.

/// SECOND BUTLER ACT ///

What has really taken place here is that Saddam has waited everybody out. The Gulf War coalition has withered away. The great powers have split on the issue and the only beneficiary of such a division amongst the great powers is actually the rogue state, namely, Saddam.

/// END ACT ///

Incoming members of the Bush administration, including Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell favor tougher action against Iraq. The man who served as chairman of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf war told his Senate confirmation hearing he supports steps to overthrow the Iraqi leader.

/// POWELL ACT ///

We need to be vigilant, ready to respond to provocations and utterly steadfast in our policy toward Saddam Hussein, and we need to be supportive of opposition efforts.

/// END ACT ///

With that goal in mind, Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the exiled opposition group the Iraqi National Congress, has been in touch with incoming members of the Bush administration.

/// CHALABI ACT ///

I think President-elect Bush has said that he will deal very harshly with any developments that Saddam will undertake in making weapons, and Saddam is doing it so I expect some vigorous action.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Chalabi's group has just been given tentative approval by the outgoing Clinton administration to begin humanitarian operations in areas of Iraq under allied protection.

/// SECOND OPT CHALABI ACT ///

We want to start this at the end of February. We are hopeful and we expect a positive response to our programs and our plans from the new administration.

/// END OPT ACT ///

So it will now be left to George W. Bush to take up a foreign policy matter that critics charge his father before him failed to resolve. And, Iraq's Saddam Hussein looks set to challenge yet another American president. (SIGNED)

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