According to a top U.S. State Department official, the U.S. is on "a roll" in its campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan and that U.S. President George W. Bush intends to use the momentum to force Iraq to open its borders to UN inspectors looking for weapons of mass destruction, The New York Times reports in its Saturday edition. Also, a senior administration official said that Bush aides are looking at options involving the building up of opposition groups to President Saddam Hussein, but that such a plan would take time to develop because "there isn't a ready-made opposition" at the moment, The New York Times reported.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage suggested in an interview with the newspaper that military action against Iraq wasn't imminent and would come, if it did, at a "place and time of our choosing."
In another interview with The Times, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that "there isn't any sense of timing" about when to force the inspection issue with Iraq. "Right now, getting Al Qaida is more important," she told the newspaper, referring to the campaign to destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. Bureau Report