Powell 'encouraged' by U.N. Security Council talks

Colin Powell

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, trying to talk the U.N. Security Council into tough new resolutions on Iraq, said Monday he was "encouraged," but would not predict how any resolutions might take shape.

And while Powell met with Security Council members, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that global support for President Bush's position that Iraq must comply with U.N. resolutions is stronger than it seems. Rumsfeld said some apparent reluctance to back Bush was little more than "political cover."

"The impression I've gotten ... is that the degree of support is not consistent with what we are seeing," he said. "We have benefited enormously from intelligence gathering from countries that are ostensibly not helping us."

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Bush told the U.N. General Assembly last week that it must require Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to comply with resolutions passed over the last 11 years, and that action -- either from the United Nations or the United States -- must be the response if Saddam fails to comply.

Rumsfeld said the administration's next step will be to bring the case against Iraq to Congress, while the United Nations deliberates, "to connect the dots before a tragedy happens."

"The goal will be to take the pieces and help people to understand that it isn't simple," he said. "There isn't a smoking gun. If we wait for a smoking gun in this instance, we'd find it after the fact. That's a little late."

Powell said last week new resolutions will have to have deadlines and penalties for missing those deadlines. Asked if he expected to get the kinds of consequences he had outlined, Powell said Monday it is too soon to say.

"We've just begun our consultations, and I'm encouraged by what I've heard so far from the Security Council representatives that I have spoken to," said Powell, "but this is a consultation and it is a negotiation and we are just now starting to look at language, so I wouldn't want to prejudge what my [Security] Council colleagues will agree to."

Powell said he believed that there is "a great deal of pressure being put on Iraq to come into compliance" with U.N. resolutions. "We will see whether or not Iraq understands the seriousness of the position it is in and whether it will respond to this direction from the Security Council," he said.

Rumsfeld, however, noted that "time is not on our side."

"Every day that goes by gives him other opportunities to connect with other terrorists," he said. "Time is on the side of those who are attempting to acquire" weapons of mass destruction.

He said the United States could easily handle a war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He added that the Iraqi people have been under the yoke of Saddam Hussein for too long.

"The regime is small. It's his family, it's a handful of generals," the secretary said.

"There are a large number of people in that country who are hostages to him. They do not agree with him, they do not support him, they are frightened to death of him. And he kills a number of them every year just so he can maintain that level of fear."