IRAQ - Feb. 5 - Powell Demands UN Action.

At a special session of the UN Security Council, US State Secretary Colin Powell demands that the Security Council respond "effectively and immediately" to a catalogue of defiance by Baghdad. Using satellite photos, intercepted conversations and reports from defectors and prisoners, Powell accuses Baghdad of systematic evasion of UN inspections, a continued build-up of weapons of mass destruction and a "sinister nexus" with Al Qaida terror organisation. He says: "This body places itself in danger of irrelevance if it allows Iraq to continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately". However, Powell stops short of saying Al Qaida's central command is operationally tied to Baghdad. Powell's evidence centres on the presence in Baghdad of Abu Musaab Al Zarkawi, an Al Qaida poisons expert. (Al Zarkawi is known to have worked on Al Qaida's weapons of mass destruction programme in Afghanistan, and has also been implicated in the murder in Oct. 2002 of a US diplomat in Jordan). During Al Zarkawi's visit to Baghdad for medical treatment in May 2002, he was accompanied by up to 24 other "Al Qaida affiliates", Powell says adding that those still there "are now operating freely in the [Iraqi] capital". Powell also strengthens US claims that Ansar Al Islam - and, by extension, Al Qaida itself - has direct links to Baghdad. He says the Iraqi intelligence service had an officer whose task was to liaise directly with the "most senior levels of Al Ansar". In addition, Powell says Osama Bin Laden met an Iraqi intelligence officer while Al Qaida was based in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in 1996. He also said an Al Qaida operative, Abu Abdallah Al Iraqi, visited Baghdad several times in 1999-2000, with a mission to develop co-operation on weapons of mass destruction. But Powell's presentation met a cool response from France, Russia and China - three fellow permanent members of the Security Council who are resisting any move to wage war on Baghdad. All said Powell's evidence showed the need for further inspections. French FM Dominique de Villepin proposed doubling - or tripling - the number of inspectors, a suggestion later dismissed by a senior US State Department official as missing the point. Dominique de Villepin said: "Given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that is inadequate because of a failure to co-operate on Iraq's part, we must choose the decisive reinforcement of the means of inspections". Russian FM Igor Ivanov argued that inspections should continue at least until late-March. Iraqi UN ambassador Mohammad Al Douri rejected Powell's allegations and said there had been a clear message from other Council members that inspections should continue.