Iraq an increasing U.S. threat

LONDON -- Iraq poses an increasing threat that must be met, the defense chiefs of the United States and Britain said Wednesday, showing growing impatience with Saddam Hussein.\n"We know that Saddam Hussein\'s regime in Iraq has had a sizable appetite for weapons of mass destruction" and is finding ways to acquire the ingredients, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said.\n"We know the borders into that country are quite porous," he added, allowing Iraq to import technologies with applications in both civilian and military industries as well as illicit materials.\n"There is not a doubt in the world that with every month that goes by their programs mature," he said.\nIraq denies it has or is developing any weapons of mass destruction, but it has refused to allow the international inspections that it agreed to accept as a condition of ending the 1991 Gulf War.\nRumsfeld would not discuss the possibility of U.S. military action to topple Saddam's government, saying that was a matter for President Bush to decide. He spoke at a joint news conference with British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon after meetings to discuss Iraq and other issues.\nRumsfeld and Hoon both expressed their governments' hope for a lowering of tensions between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan. Rumsfeld's stop in London was the first on a 10-day journey that is to take him to the Indian and Pakistani capitals next week.