Powell Sees Path to Iraq Compromise
15 minutes ago
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer
URL:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&ncid=71...
WASHINGTON (AP) - Signaling compromise, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said Tuesday "there may be a way" to bridge remaining differences with France and Russia on a U.N. resolution designed to force Iraq to disarm.
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"That's what we are working on, doing intensively today," Powell said as American diplomats at the United Nations (news - web sites) privately floated marginal revisions of the tough resolution sought by the United States and Britain six difficult weeks.
"We're hard at work and I think we are getting closer," Powell said at a State Department news conference. "But our basic principles remain the same."
"Clear indictment of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s past behavior and current behavior has to be in the resolution," he said, and "there has to be a very tough inspection regime."
"And," Powell said, insisting on another key U.S. demand, "there have to be consequences. Otherwise, Iraq will try to deceive and distract and they may try anyway, even in the face of consequences."
A White House official said the Bush administration was using its threat to act alone against Iraq as a strategy to compel Russia and France to back the joint U.S.-British resolution.
While they do not like the resolution, the administration is hoping they will support it rather than be left behind, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Powell said "we're getting close to a point where we'll have to see whether or not we can bridge these remaining differences in the very near future."
"I don't want to give you days or a week, but it certainly isn't much longer than that," he said,
If a decision on the resolution is not reached for a week it would mean President Bush (news - web sites) would be spared making a potentially explosive decision on whether to go to war until after the Congressional elections next Tuesday.
Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld joined Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Foreign Minister Robert Hill at the news conference after an annual conference on security issues.
Australia is pledged to support the United States and Britain against Iraq.
Hill said he was hopeful Iraq could be forced to abandon its nuclear, chemical and biological programs "without the use of armed force."
"But our bottom line is that we do what to see an end to this program. It's gone on for too long," Hill said.
"The threat must be removed," he said.
Powell, for his part, said if the United States was unable to get a consensus to support the resolution it will have to decide "in the very near future" whether the Council should also consider competing resolutions.
France and Russia are poised to introduce resolutions that would call for renewed international weapons inspections after a four-year lapse but not threaten Iraq with force. That might be considered later if the inspectors are foiled.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) also said "time is running out" for the United Nations to decide on a resolution.
Two administration officials told The Associated Press the United States would not bend on the core issues in the proposed resolution. But they said there could be changes at the margins to satisfy such Security Council holdouts as France and Russia.
Specifically, one official said on condition of anonymity, the United States was prepared to give Iraq more than the 30 days the resolution would permit for the Iraq to list all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Also, taking a cue from chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, the administration might relent on seeking to have Iraqi scientists who worked on weapons programs leave the country and be questioned abroad.
The main sticking point, he said, was declaring Iraq in "material breach" of U.N. inspection and disarmament resolutions. The United States considers the allegation essential, but U.S. diplomats are discussing possible ways to revise the phrasing while retaining the substance of the charge.
Powell said, however, the draft resolution gives Iraq 30 days to declare its weapons "and we still think that's enough time."
Rumsfeld, meanwhile, said Iraq had dispersed its weapons throughout the country and it would take "a good deal of time" for international inspectors to find them even if Iraq cooperated.
At the White House, President Bush assured Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites) in a telephone conversation that he wanted to settle the dispute with Iraq in a peaceful way, Fleischer said.
In Baghdad, Iraq sharply denounced the U.S. draft resolution, calling it tantamount to a declaration of war.
The top U.S. military commander in the Persian Gulf said he would prefer to go to war with an international coalition backed by the U.N., should Bush decide on military action against President Saddam Hussein.
"The best case for us ... is to be able to build our force list, our coalition, based on work with the Security Council," Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, said at a Pentagon (news - web sites) news conference. |
