U.S. To Make 'Clear Case' For War

On the 12th anniversary of the start of the last Gulf War, Saddam Hussein declared Iraq is ready for the next one, reports CBS Evening News Anchor Dan Rather in Baghdad.

He may not have long to wait.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday that by the end of the month there will be a "persuasive case" that Saddam is not cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors.

Powell told a German newspaper that the United States would present unreleased evidence of Iraqi's failure to comply with U.N. demands in the coming days and at a Jan. 27 Security Council meeting.

"We believe that, at the end of the month, it can be shown convincingly that Iraq is not cooperating," Powell told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.

The White House, meanwhile, said the discovery of 12 empty chemical warheads in Iraq on Thursday was "troubling and serious." But spokesman Ari Fleischer stopped short of declaring the find a violation of U.N. resolutions.

However, a U.S. defense official says evidence suggests some of the warheads found in Iraq were never loaded with a chemical agent.

CBS News has been told initial tests are being done on one suspect warhead, but more testing is underway.

Fleischer dismissed Baghdad's claims that it had previously reported the rockets and said they were not listed in Iraq's 12,000-page declaration, in which it was required to account for all components of its banned weapons programs. "The burden is on them to show the world what page its on," Fleischer said.

Officially, the U.N. says it's still not sure whether Iraq left the warheads off its 12,000-page weapons declaration, but the U.S. insists it did and is demanding the U.N. find more evidence to bolster a case against Iraq.

"There is not yet confidence, there is not yet certainty that all the chemical, biological weapons, and missiles are gone," said Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector.

And French President Jacques Chirac, whose country holds veto power at the United Nations, backed the inspectors' appeal for more time to carry out their search.

So inspectors kept up the pressure, visiting at least four more sites Friday. But with the inspectors coming up on eight weeks in Iraq, anti-American sentiment is growing.

Many Iraqis were angered by the surprise searches of private homes on Thursday and the detention into the night of an Iraqi scientist who wound up giving copies of his private papers to inspectors.

In a 40-minute televised speech Friday, Saddam Hussein made no mention of the inspectors. Instead he used the anniversary of the U.S. bombing in the Gulf War to warn of another attack, saying U.S. troops would be "committing suicide at the gates of Baghdad" if they choose to attack again.

He said his nation was fully mobilized and called on Iraqis to "hold your swords and guns up high" as a warning to those "who might be under the illusion" that Iraq "will not stand firm."

"The people of Baghdad have resolved to compel the Mongols of this age to commit suicide on its walls," Saddam said, comparing the Americans with the Asian warriors who destroyed the city more than 800 years ago. "Everyone who tries to climb over its walls ... will fail in his attempt."

Moments after the speech ended, thousands of Iraqis poured into the streets of Baghdad to voice their support for Saddam, at one point surrounding and delaying a U.N. convoy on their way to another inspection.

Amid fears that war could start in weeks, protesters in the United States were planning a large rally in Washington and vigils in other U.S. cities over the weekend. Anti-war rallies also were planned in Europe, Canada and Asia.

Some 200 members of the Iraqi journalists' union protested outside the inspectors' hotel Friday, but the U.N. teams were not impeded in their day's inspections. They visited military industry sites in the Faluga area west of Baghdad, a farm near Juwesma, southwest of the capital, and a farm and ice factory 30 miles outside Baghdad, the inspectors said.

A U.N. team searching bunkers Thursday in southern Iraq found 12 empty rocket warheads that could be used to carry chemical agents. Iraq claims the warheads are old and had been reported to the United Nations.

Fleischer said the weapons were not in Iraq's arms declaration. "The fact that Iraq is in possession of undeclared chemical warheads ... is troubling and serious."

Iraq in 1991 declared it possessed more than 100,000 chemical warheads and other special munitions and that most were destroyed during the previous inspections regime in the 1990s.

In December, Iraq submitted to the United Nations its weapons declaration, which it said proved that it was free of banned weapons. The top U.N. weapons inspectors, Blix and ElBaradei, due in Baghdad for talks Sunday and Monday, have said the declaration is incomplete.