Chance of Invasion
Today: 60 percent
Bush ducks war timetable question. U.S. official says, “I wouldn’t expect anything in February, or even early March.” Inspectors are now getting U.S. and British intelligence and using helicopters and unmanned surveillance aircraft. Blix says inspectors are “a form of containment.” U.S. officials threaten to disclose evidence of Iraqi WMD, but “informed U.S. and diplomatic sources [say] the evidence is largely circumstantial or dated.” Blix will press Iraq next weekend for “ more evidence” regarding “a great many open questions.” ElBaradei calls for “physical evidence of destruction” of WMD. U.S. expects inspectors to try to interview Iraqi scientists outside Iraq next week, but Blix says he has no immediate plans to do that. Europeans threaten not to pay for reconstruction if U.S. goes to war without “U.N. mandate.”
