Bush Talks Tough on N. Korea and Iraq

WASHINGTON —  WASHINGTON -- President Bush directed tough new words at both North Korea and Iraq on Friday, declaring that “all options are on the table” if Pyongyang does not stop trying to produce nuclear weapons and urging the U.N. Security Council to “make up its mind soon” about confronting Baghdad.

Bush’s remarks to reporters on North Korea and Iraq came as he escorted his new Treasury secretary, John Snow, to his swearing-in ceremony. They underscored the growing competition for the president’s time and energy as he deals with two crises abroad and also tries to focus on revitalizing the economy at home.

The administration has gone to great lengths to separate the two foreign problems, insisting that there is a diplomatic solution for North Korea while upping the military and diplomatic pressure on Iraq to disarm. Bush continued those tactics Friday.

The president told reporters that he had telephoned Chinese President Jiang Zemin to discuss both North Korea and Iraq. He also said he had fielded a call from French President Jacques Chirac.

In Beijing, state-run media were careful to portray an evenhanded response from Jiang regarding Iraq. Jiang told Bush that U.N. weapons inspectors ought to be given stronger backing in their work, but he also called on Iraq to cooperate fully with the inspections, the official New China News Agency reported today.

The Beijing regime has so far gone along with France and Russia in seeking more time for inspections, but it has been content to let those countries take the lead for fear of upsetting Sino-U.S. ties, which have slowly improved over the last 1 1/2 years.

Chirac argued that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein can be disarmed without going to war. But France also joined Russia in reiterating its demand that Iraq actively cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors, who have criticized Baghdad’s lack of cooperation to date.

The advice from France and Russia suggested that they believe Iraq is running out of time to comply and that prospects for a peaceful resolution to the weapons dispute are dwindling.

Bush’s remarks on Iraq were part of his continuing effort to make clear his view that a military strike against Iraq may be the only option -- with or without U.N. backing.

On Thursday, Bush challenged the U.N. to quickly pass a new resolution ensuring Iraq’s disarmament by force if necessary. On Friday, he said, “This is a defining moment for the U.N. Security Council.” He added, “If the Security Council were to allow a dictator to lie and deceive, the Security Council would be weakened.”

Asked if he saw any means of disarming Hussein without going to war, Bush replied, exuding an air of impatience: “That’s up to Saddam Hussein.... He’s treated the demands of the world as a joke up to now, and it was his choice to make. He’s the person who gets to decide war and peace.”

The president repeated his long-held belief that Hussein has no intention of disarming -- but is likely to continue trying to deceive the U.N. inspectors.

“He’s a master of deception.... He’ll probably try to lie his way out of compliance or deceive or put out some false statement,” Bush said. “You know, if he wanted to disarm, he would have disarmed. We know what a disarmed regime looks like.”

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer characterized the Bush-Chirac conversation as “warm” and quoted Bush as having called France “an important ally.”

In Paris, Catherine Colonna, a spokeswoman for the French president, quoted Chirac as having told Bush, “We can disarm Saddam Hussein without going to war.”

Unlike Germany, France has not ruled out participating in a military action to disarm Iraq of suspected weapons of mass destruction. But it favors giving U.N. inspectors more time to do their work, as do Russia and China, both permanent, veto-wielding members of the Security Council.

“An alternative to war still exists,” Chirac told reporters in Paris. “The decision to resort to war cannot be made lightly.”

But in calling for Iraqi cooperation with inspectors, Chirac said authorities in Baghdad “cannot shy away from their responsibility. The Iraqi regime must understand this.”

And in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov also demanded that Iraq prove to inspectors that it has destroyed all the weapons it possessed.

“Iraq must not only admit the inspectors to facilities and allow them to carry out relevant examinations, but it must also submit materials confirming that the weapons they possessed have already been destroyed,” Ivanov said after addressing the Russian parliament in a closed session Friday.

“It must be active, not passive, cooperation,” he said.

At the same time, Ivanov warned that if the United States took unilateral military action, it would destroy the anti-terrorist coalition and ruin the U.N.’s authority.

“An overwhelming majority of countries share this position and believe that it is necessary to search for a political resolution based on the existing U.N. Security Council resolutions,” he said. “The problem of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq can be resolved by political tools.”

Iraq, meanwhile, permitted the first private interviews of scientists this week, a move apparently meant to show a new willingness to work with inspectors.

On Thursday, inspectors spoke with a scientist who worked in the biological weapons program.

And on Friday, they spoke to a missile expert, a chemical engineer and another senior scientist.

But the interviews took place in two hotels assumed to be bugged, a U.S. official said. The inspectors have yet to interview any scientists out of the country.

“A drip, drip, drip of cooperation, like they’ve been doing for the last 10 years, will not be enough,” said a diplomat in New York.

The next key date in the showdown with Iraq will come Friday, when top U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei are to deliver a report to the U.N. on meetings this weekend in Baghdad.

If Iraq does not demonstrate full cooperation with the weapons inspection process by Friday, Britain will introduce a resolution authorizing military force against Iraq, diplomats at the U.N. said.

That resolution may contain a short deadline for Iraq to meet specific requirements, diplomats said, but it would certainly contain some form of authorization for the use of force.

At the least, it is expected to reaffirm that Iraq has not met the requirements that it cooperate with inspectors and disclose its weapons holdings and is therefore in “further material breach,” a conclusion that would implicitly authorize force.

In his conversation with Jiang on Friday, Bush “stressed that time was of the essence in dealing with Iraq” and that the U.N.’s credibility is on the line, Fleischer said.

On North Korea, Bush emphasized the need for a “multilateral approach,” and Jiang reiterated China’s commitment to preventing “the nuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” he said.

A North Korean official was quoted this week by Britain’s Guardian newspaper as saying that “preemptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the U.S.”

In response, Fleischer said the United States has “robust plans for any contingencies,” a comment raising the prospect of military action.

Bush, in his comments Friday to reporters, seemed to make the same point by declaring that “all options are on the table, of course,” in dealing with North Korea.

But he also reiterated his belief that “we can solve this diplomatically.”

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Chen reported from Washington and Dixon from Moscow. Times staff writers Maggie Farley at the United Nations and Henry Chu in Beijing contributed to this report.