By David Anthony Denny
Washington File staff writer

Washington -- Three high-ranking U.S. officials made a total of five appearances on U.S. television news shows January 19 and said Iraq still has not come into compliance with United Nations Security Council resolutions requiring it to disarm, and time is running out.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld all delivered the message that, for Iraq, "[d]isarmament is what it's all about," as Powell said on CBS' "Face the Nation." All spoke about U.S. policy toward North Korea as well.

"The international community, the United Nations under U.N. Resolution 1441 and many previous resolutions, has said, ‘Disarm.' If [Saddam Hussein] disarms, then there will be no war. So, the burden is on him," Powell said.

Powell further said that "time is running out," and that he expected a full report from U.N. inspectors Hans Blix of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency to the Security Council on January 27. When told that French President Chirac said "wisdom requires that ... we should grant the inspectors more time," Powell replied, "[W]isdom demands that Iraq be disarmed."

On ABC's "This Week," Rumsfeld was asked to comment on news reports that Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations are proposing plans to offer Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein exile or to isolate him by offering amnesty to several hundred top Iraqi officials.

"Oh, I think war is your last choice. I would be delighted if Saddam Hussein threw in the towel, said ‘the game's up, the international community has caught me, and I'll just leave," Rumsfeld answered. "[T]o avoid a war, I ... personally would recommend that some provision be made so that the senior leadership in that country and their families could be provided haven in some other country. And I think that would be a fair trade to avoid a war," he continued.

Rice, responding to a similar question on NBC's "Meet the Press," responded, "if there are ways for him to get out of power, it would be good to explore it. I just think it is unlikely that this man is going to come down in any other way than to be forced."

Asked for her reaction to the anti-war protests in Washington, D.C., on January 18, Rice said, "I think it's wonderful that in the United States people can go out in the streets and show their true feelings. And it contrasts so greatly with the situation that people in Iraq find themselves in, where your tongue can be ripped out for criticizing the regime."

Asked about signs carried by protesters stating "no blood for oil," Rice responded that "this is not about oil. The oil as it is being used now is not for the benefit of the Iraqi people. It is for the benefit of Saddam Hussein -- ... to build palaces. And, most importantly, it is for the benefit of him to build weapons of mass destruction."

Concerning U.S. policy toward North Korea, Rumsfeld said on Fox News that "all options are still on the table."

"The president said when he was [in South Korea], correctly, that the United States has no intention of invading North Korea. This is just a fact. ... But does that mean that ... the United States or South Korea would take an attack from North Korea and not respond? Of course not," Rumsfeld said.

Asked about a New York Times editorial criticizing U.S. policy differences on Iraq and North Korea, Powell bluntly replied, "I think that's an incorrect assessment. We don't have a cookie-cutter policy for every situation," he said.

"The president still believes strongly that a diplomatic solution [with North Korea] is possible, and we're working with our friends and allies to achieve a diplomatic solution, just as we were trying to do with Iraq for 12 years.

"So there isn't inconsistency in the policy. It's, I think, silly to think that because you're ... adopting a certain set of policy tools in one place, you have to adopt them in another place in the same fashion," Powell said.