HIGHLIGHTS: Bush Cites Saddam's Invasion of Iran & Kuwait & the Gassing of the Kurds as Evidence 'Sufficient' to Justify Ousting the Iraqi Leader||Opponents to Bush Iraq Policy at Home & Abroad Remain Unconvinced||Iraq Demands U.N. Investigates Allegations U.S. Used its Weapons' Inspection Mission in Iraq for Spying on Baghdad||Mussa Warns U.S. Attack on Iraq Will Open Gates of Hell in the Middle East|| STORY: US President George W. Bush worked to rally support for an eventual military invasion of Iraq, even as Iraq charged the United States used UN arms inspections in the 1990s as a cover for spying.

"We must anticipate problems before they occur," Bush said here as he concluded a two-state fundraising trip for Republican candidates to the House of Representatives that began in Louisville, Kentucky.

"We must deal with threats to our security today, before it can be too late."

To an enthusiastic audience in this agrarian US state, Bush said he took the threat that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction "very seriously."

"I remember the fact that he has invaded two countries before. I know for a fact that he's poisoned his own people."

Bush's outspokenness on Iraq is a change from recent weeks, when other senior US officials have taken the lead on discussing the eventual regime change in Baghdad that is a goal of the administration. Still, Congressional leaders from both parties, as well as international leaders, have remained unconvinced and have publicly and regularly expressed their reservations.

Fervent opposition to the administration's unilateral stance on Iraq from the Congress has prompted an about-face, with Bush announcing Wednesday that he plans to take any military proposals for Iraq to lawmakers and offering administration officials for testimony at planned Congressional hearings.

Still, in telephone conversations planned for Friday with his French, Russian and Chinese counterparts, as well as a face-to-face meeting Saturday with close ally Tony Blair of Britain, Bush said he will stress that the world's "worst leaders" should not have access to the "worst weapons."

"I will remind them that history has called us in action, that we love freedom, that we will be deliberate, patient, strong in the values that we adhere to," Bush said from Louisville, Kentucky, where he headlined a fundraiser for struggling House candidates.

Bush is to return to the Midwest Monday for talks in Detroit with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and is also due to address the UN General Assembly on September 12, to make his case for military action against Baghdad, even without waiting for the resumption of arms inspections.

Iraq meanwhile charged that the United States used UN arms inspections in the 1990s as a cover for spying on it, and demanded a UN investigation into the allegations.

"Iraq demands the UN open an investigation into the United States' exploitation of missions by the UN to carry out spying activities that threatened (Iraq's) security," Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said in a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan quoted by the official INA news agency.

Iraq says it has dismantled any nuclear, biological or chemical weapons programme and demands that the UN lift the trade sanctions slapped on Iraq in 1990 after it invaded its neighbour Kuwait.

And Bush's increasingly bellicose language toward Iraq drew expected reaction from Baghdad and fellow Arab states.
Arab League chief Amr Mussa, rounding off a foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo, warned that a US strike against Iraq would "open the gates of hell" in the Middle East.

In Baghdad, the official daily Al-Jumhuriya said Washington would not escape unscathed.

"Driven by a deep hatred for Iraq, Arabism and Islam, Bush and some officials in his administration are pushing the (Middle East) region ... into the unknown, and the United States will be the first to pay the price," it said.

In Saudi Arabia, Iraq's staunch enemy in the Gulf War, the semi-official press urged the Baghdad regime to readmit UN arms inspectors "immediately," before it is too late to avert a US strike.

European and other nations remained wary.

While Blair, Bush's closest ally, was expected to back any US military action, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said it would be a "big mistake" for Washington to launch its own war on Iraq and that Germany could never support such action.

US Vice President Dick Cheney and top administration officials meanwhile met at the Pentagon with two dozen senators to discuss Iraq and the looming threat of weapons of mass destruction, a senior US defense official said.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CIA director George Tenet, and the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers also took part in the session, which lasted more than an hour, according to the official who asked not to be identified.

Anglo-American Jets Attack Iraq

Iraq has meanwhile said U.S. and British warplanes attacked civilian targets in Anbar province, west of the capital Baghdad, Thursday but reported no casualties.

In Washington, the U.S. military said its warplanes attacked an air defense target in a "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq in the latest in an escalating series of exchanges.

The strike was the 35th this year by American and British jets patrolling no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.
The U.S. jets fired precision-guided weapons at a command-and-control post at a military airfield 240 miles west of Baghdad, the U.S. military's Central Command said.

An Iraqi military spokesman said: "At 0925 local time (1:25 a.m. EDT) today, hostile planes violated our airspace, carrying out 48 sorties from bases in Kuwait."

Iraq does not recognize the zones, set up after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Kurds and Shiites from attack by Saddam's military.

Attacks on ground targets and Iraqi attempts to shoot down western warplanes have increased in recent weeks with 10 air strikes in August, eight of them in the south.

PHOTO CAPTION

Fighter jets sit are parked at the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in the Persian Gulf Thursday Sept. 5, 2002. The carrier is operating in the Persian Gulf to support Operation Southern Watch, the aerial monitoring of the skies over southern Iraq, and Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)
- Sep 05 3:06 PM