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| Sunday, 15 December 2002 |
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UK to send troops to Gulf in January, says paper LONDON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - British troops will begin deploying to the Gulf next month in preparation for a war with Iraq, The Times newspaper reported on Saturday. The paper, citing what it called authoritative sources, said the government was expected to make an announcement before Christmas. The Daily Telegraph, in an unsourced report, said defence chiefs had told Prime Minister Tony Blair he must decide within 10 days whether to send British troops to the Gulf. But a Defence Ministry spokesman told Reuters no decisions had yet been taken on military options. "Obviously we are taking sensible precautions to ensure our ability to undertake any military action," he said. "We are making contingency plans... we have stated on many occasions war (with Iraq) is not inevitable or imminent." He added the government was awaiting the assessment of Iraq's dossier on its weapons programme, which Baghdad handed to the United Nations on December 7. The Times said British troops from 7th Armoured Brigade and 4th Armoured Brigade in Germany were training at their bases and were expected to form the main British land force. U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, together with Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, are expected to give preliminary findings on the Iraqi dossier to the Security Council in New York on Thursday. On Friday U.S. and U.N. diplomats reached a preliminary agreement that Iraq's declaration of its weapons programme fell short of what was required under a tough November 8 U.N. Security Council Resolution, which demanded Iraq disarm or face severe consequences. |
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