Liberia's president ready to step down

MONROVIA, Liberia -- Liberia's embattled warlord-turned-president repeated his oft-broken pledge to step down Saturday, telling die-hard party supporters that U.N. sanctions had crippled the economy and left his government unable to defend itself against foreign-backed rebels.\n"I have decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. I have decided to be the sacrificial lamb that you people should live," Charles Taylor told a gathering of hundreds of ruling party faithful in Liberia's wartorn capital. "We had to come to the realization that with the massive, mighty forces against us, we had to take a different course."\nPresident Bush, under pressure to send peacekeepers to the West African country, has repeatedly demanded Taylor resign as a first step toward peace.\nTaylor -- beset by rebels and wanted for war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone -- has accepted an offer of asylum in Nigeria, but on condition that an international force deploys to ensure an orderly transition.\n"If you can stand up and call upon a legitimate president to leave ... then I also reverse the challenge: What can you do for Liberia?" Taylor said Saturday. "Bring in the Army corps engineers."\nTaylor also appeared to criticize a team of American military advisers, which has been followed by television news cameras since it arrived Monday to assess security conditions in Liberia and the humanitarian needs of its 3 million people ahead of a possible U.S. deployment.\n"You are not going to use (Liberia) as a photo opportunity," Taylor said, adding that the country had been neglected since it was founded 157 years ago by freed American slaves.\nMembers of the American team traveled Saturday to Gbarnga and Salala, towns in central Liberia, some 90 miles northeast of the capital, where they inspected a hospital, clinic and a bridge damaged in Liberia's last 1989-96 civil war.\nMore U.S. military envoys were in nearby Ghana to meet with members of a regional economic bloc which has promised to send more than 1,500 troops in less than two weeks to enforce a repeatedly violated June cease-fire in Liberia.\nBush, who wrapped up a five-nation African tour Saturday in Nigeria, was waiting to hear back from these teams before deciding whether to contribute to the force.\nTaylor launched Liberia's last civil war with a failed uprising and went on to win the 1997 elections on the threat of resuming the bloodletting if he lost. Since then, some of his rivals have regrouped, battling to topple him in a three-year uprising culminating last month in two attacks on the capital that killed hundreds.\nThe United Nations has imposed arms, diamonds and timber sanctions to punish Taylor for trading weapons for gems in neighboring Sierra Leone. He has also been indited by a U.N.-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone on charges of supporting that country's brutal rebels, whose signature atrocities were hacking off civilians' limbs and facial features.\nTaylor said Saturday that the U.S.-backed sanctions had crippled his ability to defend his government against the rebels, which he claimed were a "surrogate army" for unnamed foreign powers. Liberia has traded accusations with Sierra Leone and Guinea of backing each others' insurgents.\n"At a time when the United States rightly has a policy of pre-emptive strikes against those perceived to endanger the security of the United States, they will deny the people of Liberia the right to self-defense," Taylor complained.