Arab states gather to voice opposition to attack on Iraq

CAIRO, Egypt -- Arab states solidly backed Iraq on Thursday in its showdown with Washington, and a top official said a U.S. attack against Saddam Hussein would "open the gates of hell in the Middle East." The Arab League leader also called for Baghdad to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors to cool the crisis.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa issued the chilling warning and said Iraq could dispel allegations it had broken promises made at the end of the Gulf War if it allowed the return of weapons inspectors. The inspectors left in 1998 in advance of U.S. and British airstrikes against Iraq, a major oil producer.

"We believe that the return of the inspectors within the framework of ... the Security Council resolutions would form an important step toward showing the world whether there is indeed a violation of the Security Council resolutions," Moussa said.

The unified Arab stance was a diplomatic coup for Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, who told reporters that all the Arab governments had expressed their "total rejection of the aggressive intentions of the United States."

The two-day Arab League foreign ministerial meeting, which ended Thursday, was held as the Bush administration continued threatening to attack Iraq to remove Saddam and wipe out his alleged program to build chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Saddam, at the end of the Gulf War, pledged to scrap the program.

In Washington on Thursday, Army Secretary Thomas White said the United States recently doubled the size of its war stocks in Kuwait to accommodate a little-noticed expansion of U.S. armored forces at a base near the Iraqi border.

White said the Army is ready for whatever action President Bush chooses as he considers how to fulfill his administration's goal of removing Saddam from power.