WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The Bush administration and the Senate majority leader Monday sharply rejected an offer from Saddam Hussein's government to visit Iraq and search for chemical and biological weapons.
Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said President George W. Bush's position on the Iraqi confrontation is "well known" and administration officials have said they believe Iraq's recent spate of offers is a delaying tactic.
Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., called the letter "another attempt by the Iraqi leadership to deflect attention from their unwillingness to fulfill a commitment they've already made to the international community."
Daschle's statement said the "United States Congress isn't asking for an invitation, we're asking Iraq to grant the UN weapons team the full unfettered access they need to do their jobs."
Bush has called for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's removal, but has said he is undecided over what method to use to carry that out.
Bush has said he has no plans on his desk to attack Iraq, but he has said his administration reserves the right to attack a nation to prevent it from attacking the United States.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Sunday after listening to a week of hearings on Iraq that he believes war is "where we end up," but others here and abroad had differing views at the weekend.
Russia, for instance, welcomed Friday's Iraqi invitation to U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix to meet in Baghdad for discussions. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov called the invitation Monday the "first step on the way to full-scale renewal of cooperation between Baghdad and the U.N." The White House said Iraq's offered didn't change anything.
Despite Biden's acceptance that there would be a war, others were more sanguine. Former Air Force Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser in the first Bush White House, warned that a U.S. invasion of Iraq "could turn the whole region into a caldron and thus, destroy the war on terrorism."
Scowcroft, appearing Sunday on the CBS-TV program "Face the Nation," said the United Nations should press for an unrestricted weapons inspection program which allow their inspectors to go anywhere in Iraq unannounced.
Also on "Face the Nation," Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., sounded caution.
"We all know Saddam Hussein is a threat," he said. "The real question here is: what is the urgency of the threat."
Hagel also said if the United States planned military action, it would have to be large and commanding.
"If you think you're going to drop the 82nd Airborne in Baghdad and finish the job, I think you've been watching too many John Wayne movies," he said.
Daschle said he does not believe Bush can go to war without Congress.
Sadoun Hammadi, speaker of the Iraq parliament, invited U.S. lawmakers on a three-week visit, accompanied by arms experts of their choice to sites in Iraq where they suspect weapons of mass destruction are hidden.
The president himself spent midday Monday in Pittsburgh, where he honored the rescue workers who freed nine mine workers trapped below ground 10 days ago and met with the rescued miners and their families.
The president said he found the way the miners had hung together when trapped 8,000 feet below ground a metaphor for how America can work together.
"They understood that they needed to rely upon each other," Bush said, "rely upon the strength of each."
"It was their determination to stick together and to comfort each other that really defines the kind of new spirit that's prevalent in our country," the president said.
