Ole Rummy is at it again. Isn't there a back office he can be stuck in until Bush's term is over?
ted
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Britain Proposes Conditions to Iraq
UNITED NATIONS (March 12) - Britain set out six tough new conditions for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to avoid war on Wednesday, in an attempt to break the U.N. Security Council stalemate over a resolution to set Baghdad a tight deadline before fighting begins.
With nine votes needed for a majority and a vote expected by the end of the week, the new British proposals were aimed to win over six uncommitted nations on the 15-member Security Council.
An amended resolution, expected to be formally presented to Security Council members on Wednesday, still seemed certain to be vetoed by France, Russia and possibly China. The United States and Britain hope for a vote on Friday, diplomats said.
President Bush has vowed to go to war with or without U.N. backing and there are around 250,000 U.S. and British troops poised to invade Iraq. However abandoning the world body would carry a heavy price, especially for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose political future is at stake.
But Washington's patience seemed to be wearing thin.
"The Security Council needs to stand up, give him a very clear message that he needs to disarm -- that he has days, not weeks, to disarm," Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in a radio interview.
Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio, whose government supports the resolution, said the sponsors were considering not presenting it for a vote because France was sure to veto it.
British officials said they wanted to present the conditions -- which include a demand that Saddam appear on television and pledge to give up weapons of mass destruction -- as a side statement to a fresh resolution. The deadline for Iraq to comply could be moved from March 17 to March 21, diplomats said.
Among uncommitted members on the Security Council, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos he was losing hope of a diplomatic solution and "frustrated" with the impasse on the council.
The other uncommitted nations are: Mexico, Pakistan, Angola, Cameroon and Guinea. In favor of the resolution are the United States, Britain, Spain and Bulgaria. Against are Russia, China, France, Germany and Syria. A 'no' vote from any of the first three would automatically kill the resolution.
Some U.S. sources said there were signs that Cameroon and Angola were leaning their way after intense lobbying by Bush and other top U.S. officials.
WARNING TO KREMLIN
In another sign of the intense diplomatic pressure Washington was bringing to bear, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Alexander Vershbow, warned Moscow to think twice about the consequences of using its U.N. veto.
"Russia should carefully weigh all the consequences," he told Russia's Izvestia newspaper.
Diplomats thought the list of British conditions would be next to impossible for Saddam to accept without fatally weakening the basis of his power. They included demands that:
-- Iraq should allow 30 of its scientists to be interviewed outside the country with their families in tow;
-- surrender stocks of anthrax and other biological and chemical agents or produce documents to demonstrate what happened to them;
-- destroy banned missiles;
-- account for unmanned aerial vehicles;
-- promise to hand over all mobile bio-production laboratories for destruction.
But the humiliating demand for a televised "mea culpa" alone is likely to be too much for Saddam, prompting antiwar members of Blair's Labor Party to ask if his wish-list was little short of a declaration of war.
In a possible sign of war nervousness, a U.N. force monitoring the Iraq-Kuwait border said it was "temporarily" removing some observers from parts of the demilitarized zone.
There were also signs of strain between Britain and the United States after U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested Washington was ready to go it alone without the support of troops from Britain if necessary.
Rumsfeld quickly backtracked, saying he was confident America's chief ally would fight side by side with U.S. troops, and Britain said it would.
"If action is necessary, there will be a significant part played by British troops," said a spokesman for Blair, who brushed aside lawmakers' calls for him to save his political career -- endangered by domestic opposition to war -- by accepting a non-combat role for British forces.
The European Union warned the United States against attacking Iraq without U.N. approval and said Europe might withhold funds for reconstruction under such circumstances.
REUTERS Rtr 13:19 03-12-03
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