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Ionic Quadra Special

Congress call for adding Iraq to hit list

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, October 11, 2001

WASHINGTON Ñ U.S. President George Bush is being urged to strike terrorist groups linked to Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden, including Iraq.

Congressional leaders and counterterrorist experts are warning that without such a strike the United States will be vulnerable to additional Islamic suicide attacks. The White House has also been advised by Pentagon officials to widen the attacks.

Some of the congressional leaders said Iraq should eventually be on the U.S. hit list. They said the United States would first have to demonstrate a link between Bin Laden and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"Somewhere down the line we're going to have to deal with Iraq," Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, said. "Clearly, they do have their own form of terrorism, and they still have Saddam Hussein. So we're going to have to contend with that problem but, I think, probably a little later down the line."

But the State Department is urging the White House to limit the attack to Afghanistan. The department has warned that Arab and Islamic opposition will grow should the United States widen the current offensive.

The State Department has issued an alert for U.S. nationals abroad. The alert urges citizens in the Middle East and Islamic countries to change their routine and avoid mosques.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the current military campaign against Afghanistan is part of a much larger effort against global terrorism.

Rumsfeld said the strike would be sustained and widened.

"It will likely be sustained for a period of years, not weeks or months," Rumsfeld said. "This campaign will be waged much like the Cold War, in the sense that it will involve many fronts over a period of time and will require continuous pressure by a large number of countries around the globe."

Rumsfeld said the United States will employ both overt and covert military means. He said the campaign would widen to terrorists around the region.

U.S. warplanes bombed several Afghan cities on Tuesday. They included Herat, Jalabad, Kabul and Kandahar.

Pentagon sources said the air war will end in a few days, replaced by U.S. and British commando raids. They said the entire air defense system of the ruling Afghan Taliban movement has been destroyed.

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