In the "State of the Union" address President Bush singled out Iraq as part of what he called "Axis of Evil."

Secretary of State Powell told the House International Relations Committee that President Bush "still believes strongly in regime change" in Iraq, and that "the United States might have to do it alone". (New York Times, February 7, 2002).

The Israeli press reported about the US and Israel's joint war game to test the "Iraqi scenario" in preparation for a possible US strike against Iraq in May (Haarets, February 5, 2002). Meanwhile on February 7, during a meeting with President Bush at the White House, visiting Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon promised to help the US if it attacks Iraq. (Daily Telegraph, February 8, 2002)

Vice President Cheney's upcoming visit to 11 countries in the region, including four states bordering Iraq, has caused widespread speculation that the purpose of this trip is to pave the way for a full scale military intervention in Iraq (Reuters, February 7, 2002)

The US agreed to resume its financial backing for the Iraqi opposition group, INC, which was earlier accused of corruption and poor bookkeeping. (BBC Persian Service, January 31, 2002).

Britain, the US's closest ally in its "war against terrorism," openly expressed its dismay at Washington's hard line policies towards Iraq. During a visit to the US on February 1, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that Bush's State of the Union address was motivated by US domestic politics, adding that there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein was implicated in the September 11 attacks. (Guardian, February 4,2002).

Ludger Volmer, Germany's deputy Foreign Minister, made it clear that his country does not support a US attack against Iraq: "The United States has old scores to settle with Iraq... This terror argument can't be used to legitimize old enmities". (AP, February 4, 2002)

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine accused the US government of pursuing a "simplistic" foreign policy since September 11; calling the White Houses policy in the Middle East a "tragic mistake." Mr. Vedrine insisted that: " we cannot fight terrorism only with military means.... We must deal with the root causes, the situation of poverty, injustice, humiliation and so on" (BBC news, February 7, 2002).

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has warned the US not to take unilateral military action against Iraq. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said that the use of force against Iraq was "far from being the sole, universal or best solution". (BBC news, February 11, 2002).

The CIA publicly confirmed that it has "no evidence that Iraq has engaged in terrorist operations against the United States in nearly a decade, and the agency is also convinced that President Saddam Hussein has not provided chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda or related terrorist groups" (New York Times, February 6, 2002).

In light of Baghdad's new offer to hold talks with UN without pre-conditions, and Iraq's proposal to let the international weapons monitoring team return if the bombing and economic sanctions are lifted (Iraqi Ambassador to UN Mohammad Al-Douri, BBC news, November 29, 2001), we believe that starting dialogue with Iraq and resuming the activities of UN weapon's inspection team in Iraq is the only reasonable option.

Iraq has taken encouraging steps in the past few weeks indicating a willingness to receive outside inspectors. For the first time in the past ten years, Iraq has agreed to allow the UN special investigator on human rights to visit Iraq. (AFP (French News Agency), January 28 2002). And a team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency recently performed a limited four-day inspection of Iraq's nuclear facilities. According to the IAEA spokeswoman, Iraq has stated that it will allow a full-fledged IAEA inspection once UN sanctions are lifted (Radio Free Europe's Iraq Report, February 1, 2002)