-Caveat Lector- From http://www.iht.com/articles/74143.html
Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com U.S. softens Iraq draft Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune Friday, October 18, 2002 New wording calls for greater UN role WASHINGTON Seeking to end an impasse with France over Iraq and to ease widespread opposition at the UN to its threats of war, the United States on Thursday offered a revised resolution giving more weight to arms inspectors' findings and calling for further Security Council consultations before any decision to attack Baghdad, diplomats said. The new draft moves the Bush administration nearer to the majority stance on the Security Council, which wants a UN role in any decision to attack Iraq over its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs and its defiance of past UN demands. It fell short, however, of the French insistence on a second resolution to authorize war if, and only if, the Security Council decided that Iraq had unacceptably impeded returning UN arms inspectors. "It now all depends on Washington and Paris," said a Security Council diplomat. France was studying the new draft, but a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Francois Rivasseau, said that the two-day debate on Iraq before the Security Council, concluding Thursday, showed broad international support for the French position. Nation after nation at the United Nations has advocated an early return of weapons inspectors to Iraq and urged the council to warn Washington against military action. Several U.S. allies - the European Union, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - backed the U.S. stance that Iraq, which has flouted UN resolutions for years, should be told in clear and tough terms that it must grant inspectors unrestricted access to all sites. None of the allies, however, called for a resolution authorizing military action. The new U.S. draft foresees a return to the Security Council after UN arms inspectors report on their progress - which could take many months. Unlike in the original U.S. draft, the United States would not be given presumptive UN clearance to determine if Iraq was cooperating sufficiently. Nothing in the draft, however, would prevent the United States from deciding to attack Iraq after the Security Council began its consultations. The United States has increased pressure in public venues and in diplomatic corridors to persuade France to join in its approach. France is pondering the new U.S. approach, diplomats said. "It's a matter of whether the French can swallow this or whether they keep pushing until the U.S. goes over the brink and decides to walk away," a diplomat close to the Security Council said. A U.S. spokesman denied earlier news reports that the United States had dropped its demand for a single resolution authorizing use of force. "We have not and will not back away from one resolution," said the spokesman by telephone from the United Nations. "We want a resolution with full authority in the first and final resolution." The United States continued to press France, one of the five permanent Security Council members, to drop its insistence on a two-resolution approach. One Bush administration official was quoted as saying that Washington was giving Paris "one last shot." Another cautioned that Washington's patience was "not going to last forever." France's position enjoys backing from two other permanent members, Russia and China. Britain, the fifth permanent member, supports U.S. calls for a tough line on Iraq, even while remaining open to a Security Council compromise. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said that intense efforts were under way to reach an accord acceptable to all. "We're looking for unity in the council," he said. But President Jacques Chirac of France, speaking Wednesday, indicated no softening of the French stance. In a statement seen by some as a veto threat, Chirac said that France wanted a resolution "in line with the interests of the region as we see them." If that failed, he added, "France, as a member of the Security Council and a permanent member, will assume its responsibilities." And in Lebanon on Thursday, Chirac told the Parliament in Beirut: "Military action, the last option, is not a foregone conclusion." The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, briefed Bush and his senior advisers Wednesday that a majority of the 15-member Security Council appeared to disagree with the U.S. position. But Bush's feeling, sources told The Washington Post, was that he had made good on his pledge to consult the United Nations; it would not be his fault if agreement were not reached. If war came without a resolution, a source was quoted as saying, "The French will be responsible for it." A senior State Department official played down the U.S.-$ French divide, however. "The French really do want to be with us," he told The New York Times. "The French are worried that if the first resolution authorizes all necessary means to enforce inspections, we might go to war without checking with them." "What they want is to keep the Security Council in the picture. We believe that can be done in the context of one resolution." The Bush administration also showed willingness in its new draft to drop provisions - opposed by most Security Council members and the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix - to allow key council members to join UN inspections and have troops open any routes that may be barred to the arms experts. In the UN debate, ambassadors from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America welcomed the Iraqi decision last month to allow UN inspectors to return - they had been banned by Baghdad since leaving in 1998 - and said the council should send the inspectors back quickly to test Baghdad's commitment. A new war, many of them warned, would have an impact beyond the suffering of Iraqi victims. It could engulf the Middle East in conflict, shake the world economy and threaten global stability, they said. "This war is useless because its motives are not well founded," Ambassador Noureddine Mejdoub of Tunisia said. "It would unleash a chain of reactions in Iraq and in the region." "Every possible effort should be made to avert war," Ambassador Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury of Bangladesh said Thursday. President Bashar Assad of Syria told Reuters that a war in Iraq would kill millions, batter the regional economy and spawn a flood of refugees. "Even the United States does not know how a war in Iraq is going to end," he said. 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