BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq began crushing banned missiles with bulldozers Saturday, meeting a U.N. demand in an attempt to prevent a devastating U.S.-led attack. Washington dismissed the move and continued to push for war.
But President Bush's preparations for a military showdown with Iraq suffered a severe setback when Turkey's parliament failed to approve the deployment of 62,000 U.S. combat troops. The United States wants to use Turkey to open a northern front against Iraq if it launched a war.
Even Arab nations failed to find unity over the Iraq crisis, with a summit descending into an exchange of insults between Saudi Arabia's crown prince and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. The United Arab Emirates called on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down, but the leaders eventually agreed on a declaration rejecting any aggression on Iraq.
In a sprawling military complex on a desert plain just north of Baghdad, U.N. weapons inspectors watched as Iraqi workers tried to crush an Al Samoud 2 missile, then had to wait for bigger bulldozers to finish the job.
"They built it very strong," joked the No. 2 inspector, Demetrius Perricos.
Perricos, who traveled to Baghdad to work out the last-minute details on destruction, said he had agreed on a timetable of "a few days or a very short few weeks" to destroy Iraq's 100-plus missiles - as well as components, software and machines used to make them.
Four missiles were destroyed Saturday, and Perricos said the pace would soon accelerate. The missiles' warheads were removed and will be destroyed at a safer site. South of Baghdad, workers began destroying a casting chamber used to make the Al Samoud 2, Perricos said.
European leaders praised the move, but White House spokeswoman Merci Viana said Iraq's decision was "part of its game of deception." Spokesman Ari Fleischer said that to avoid a war, Iraq needed not only to disarm, but also to change its leadership.
The United Nations reported that interviews with Iraqi missiles and biological weapons experts - delayed for nearly a month because the scientists refused to speak without recording the conversations - had resumed.
Two scientists were debriefed by inspectors Friday night, and Iraq's Foreign Ministry said officials encouraged the experts to do the interviews without tape recorders. A third scientist invited by the inspectors refused and a fourth is out of the country, the ministry said.
Several more interviews were planned Saturday evening, but it was unclear whether they occurred, inspectors' spokesman Hiro Ueki said.
Perricos said the inspectors thought an upcoming Security Council meeting might pressure the scientists to grant interviews, "and luckily enough we saw some changes of attitude."
But while the missile destruction and the interviews met key U.N. demands, Perricos would not say how the actions might affect the badly divided council, which is considering a U.S.-led proposal that would authorize war.
"Taking the Samoud 2 system out of the way is definitely a concrete action on disarmament," Perricos said, but cautioned: "I cannot tell you if this development pushes the war away."
Plans for that war took a serious blow Saturday when Turkish lawmakers voted to let American combat troops use their country as a base for an Iraq war - then watched as the speaker of parliament voided the vote on constitutional grounds, ruling that it failed to get a majority.
The vote was 264-250 with 19 abstentions, four short of a simple majority.
The approval would have let up to 62,000 troops, 255 warplanes and 65 helicopters use bases in Turkey to open a northern front against Iraq, dividing Saddam's army if there is a war. Turkish and U.S. generals had said the strategy would make the war quicker and less bloody.
Unexpected discord also broke out in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik, where leaders of the 22-member Arab League were gathered for a summit on the Iraq crisis.
Gadhafi, a sharp critic of what he calls a lack of Arab unity, said in his speech that Saudi Arabia had formed "an alliance with the devil" when it asked U.S. troops to protect it from Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War.
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, the effective ruler of the kingdom, interrupted angrily from across the room, calling Gadhafi "an agent for colonizers." A live international broadcast of the summit was cut off, and diplomats said other leaders had to persuade Abdullah not to leave.
The United Arab Emirates called on Saddam to step down - the first time an Arab nation has openly proposed the Iraqi leadership quit to spare the region war. Other nations did not discuss the proposal - because they "didn't have the courage," the Emirates information minister said.
The summit ended with a declaration expressing "complete rejection of any aggression on Iraq" and calling for giving inspections more time. It also urged Baghdad to abide by U.N. demands that it surrender weapons of mass destruction and missiles it could use to deliver them.
The destruction of the Al Samoud 2 missiles had been ordered by chief inspector Hans Blix, who said Iraq had to begin the destruction by Saturday.
Perricos held technical discussions with the Iraqis before the destruction began, and said he would hold more Sunday morning about stores of anthrax and VX that Iraq says it destroyed.
Saddam's top deputy, Izzat Ibrahim, said in Sharm el-Sheik that the new moves should show Iraq is doing everything it can to prevent war.
"We have exerted, and still are exerting, all tough efforts to facilitate the work of inspectors' teams to prove to the world the truth about Iraq not having weapons of mass destruction, the falsity of America's claims and to expose their aggressive intentions," he said.
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