United States Vice-President Dick Cheney’s combative speech advocating a pre-emptive strike against Iraq was intended to settle the most serious rift in US public life right now, a conflict simmering not only within the Republican Party, but inside the Bush dynasty itself.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan deepened splits this week over how the international community should respond to an Iraqi invitation for the chief UN weapons inspector to visit Baghdad by saying such a move could be considered under certain conditions.
The Bush administration sat on a Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing president and competing priorities. The plan was drawn up in the last days of Bill Clinton’s administration.
President George W Bush thrust the war on terror back to centre stage this week, pledging a ”full-scale manhunt” against al-Qaida, as doubts began to snowball about United States government claims to have foiled a plot to detonate a ”dirty bomb”.
An acrimonious rift opened between the CIA and FBI this week over which agency was more to blame for failing to prevent the September 11 attacks. An extraordinary finger-pointing battle broke through the usual wall of secrecy surrounding intelligence matters.
WEAPONS from Eastern Europe are being smuggled through Syria into Iraq, as Saddam Hussein builds up his defences in anticipation of a United States-led assault, according to three Iraqi officers who have fled to Europe.
United States President-elect George W Bush put the finishing touches to his Cabinet this week.