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Bush Advisers Press for Action on Iraq Cheney Leads Aides in Warning that U.S. Faces Grave Danger
Monday, September 9, 2002
By Todd S. Purdum New York Times

"I think there is a sound legal argument that the president, if he felt it was necessary to do something now, can find the authority within existing U.N. resolutions" dating from the Persian Gulf War, Powell said on Fox News Sunday, though he added, "I'm not saying that that's the way he would go."

WASHINGTON -- NYT
Led by Vice President Dick Cheney, who warned grimly that "time is not on our side," President Bush's top national security officials said nearly in unison Sunday that Saddam Hussein's efforts to build nuclear weapons left the United States little choice but to act against Iraq.

"There shouldn't be any doubt in anybody's mind that this president is absolutely bound and determined to deal with this threat, and to do whatever is necessary to make certain that we do so," Cheney said.

He said Iraq was sparing no effort to revive its nuclear weapon program and that in light of Sept. 11, its history with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs directly threatened the United States.

In almost identical language that signaled a carefully coordinated campaign to move Congress and the United Nations in their direction, Bush's other top national security officials said on television news shows Sunday that the president would seek support from Congress and the United Nations for action, including a possible military strike.

But they insisted, as Cheney put it on NBC's "Meet the Press," that, "This problem has to be dealt with one way or another."

The president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said "there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly" Hussein can acquire nuclear weapons. But, speaking on CNN's "Late Edition," she added: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Like his colleagues, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cited the Sept. 11 attacks in making his case that the world cannot wait to see what Iraq may do.

* RUMSFELD DRAWS GRIM PICTURE
* HUSSEIN 'WANTS' ATOM WEAPONS
(More: The San Francisco Chronicle News Source)
2002 © The New York Times Company.

Dan