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US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday dismissed Baghdad's offer to destroy its controversial missiles, saying that the effort does not constitute a proof of cooperation.
"I don't see a change in the pattern at all.... This is exactly what's been going for years," Rumsfeld told a press conference.
The US defense secretary was responding to reports that Iraq had sent a letter to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and agreed in principle to the UN demands that it start destroying its Al-Samoud 2 missiles by Saturday.
"They refuse to cooperate, don't cooperate, drag it out, wait until someone finally nails them with one little piece of the whole puzzle and refuse to do anything about it and then finally when they see the pressure building, they say well, maybe we'll do some of that," Rumsfeld said.
But a senior State Department official on Thursday refused to comment on the development, saying that he would first want to see the Iraqi letter and read it in full.
(China Daily February 28, 2003)
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