Britain to Introduce Second Iraq Resolution Monday
URL:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,79386,00.html
Monday, February 24, 2003
UNITED NATIONS — Britain will submit a second resolution to the U.N. Security Council Monday afternoon authorizing military action against Iraq.
The resolution is expected to be "short and sweet," a source told Fox News. "A clear follow-up to 1441," the source said, referring to Security Council Resolution 1441, which calls for the complete and immediate disarmament of Iraq.
The release of the resolution, originally scheduled for around 10 a.m. Monday, has been pushed back until around 3:30 p.m., Fox News has learned.
The White House said Monday morning that it expects the United Nations to consider the Iraq resolution in "short order."
"Because we want international consensus," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said earlier Monday, "we will be allowing a good period of up to two weeks, maybe a little more, before we ask for a decision."
Quick approval by the Security Council of the American-British resolution could set the stage for war by mid-March.
The new resolution "will spell out that we are approaching the end of the final opportunity that [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein was given in [Resolution] 1441 on November 8 to completely disarm in substance as well as process," Straw told reporters at a European Union foreign ministers' conference in Brussels, according to Reuters.
Getting approval from a deeply divided Security Council will be a daunting task. Eleven of the 15 council members, including veto-wielding members France, Russia and China, want to see inspections continue.
The French government, which has led the opposition to military action, reaffirmed Monday that a second resolution was "neither useful nor necessary" and called instead for strengthened weapons inspections.
"There is no reason today to interrupt the strategy of inspections to veer into another way of thinking that would lead to war," said Catherine Colonna, chief spokeswoman for President Jacques Chirac.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose nation holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, agreed.
"We are with France of the opinion that within the bounds of 1441 we have enough possibilities to support the progress that the inspectors are making," he told reporters in Berlin in anticipation of an evening rendezvous with Chirac, according to Reuters.
Nonetheless, the next six days are critical for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Top U.N. inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei have said Iraq still has not been fully cooperating or providing evidence to answer outstanding questions about its nuclear, chemical, biological and long-range missile programs.
To demonstrate that Iraq is cooperating, Saddam must not only show that it is doing more to answer those questions. He must also comply with Blix's order to begin destroying all Iraq's Al Samoud 2 missiles and the engines and components for them by Saturday.
Blix apparently chose Saturday deliberately: It is March 1, the deadline for his quarterly written report to the Security Council on Iraq's cooperation and the status of weapons inspections, which resumed in early November after four years.
That report will be scrutinized by the 15 council members, whose unity last November in giving Saddam a final opportunity to disarm has been shattered. Straw's two-week timetable would give member states ample time to study Blix's assessment before voting on the new resolution.
The United States and Britain maintain that Iraq does not intend to disarm, and therefore the council should give a green light to military action.
So far, only Spain and Bulgaria among the other 13 members support that position. Nine "yes" votes — and no French, Russian or Chinese veto — would be needed to pass the new resolution.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has said Paris does not yet need to consider using its veto because the United States and Britain do not have the nine votes.
The United States has sent senior officials to lobby key council nations.
Positions on the Security Council could change if Iraq did not quickly produce new evidence about its weapons programs and agree to destroy the Al Samoud missiles, which exceed the 150-kilometer (93-mile) limit allowed under a U.N. resolution adopted after the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraq has withheld a decision on destroying the missile program, but its chief liaison to the U.N. inspectors, Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohamed Amid, said in Baghdad that the government is "serious about solving this."
Blix, meanwhile, will meet Monday and Tuesday with his College of Commissioners, an advisory body, to go over the report due on Saturday. Blix will present the commissioners with a list of more than 35 outstanding questions about Iraq's weapons programs.
The list won't be included in Blix's March 1 report, but he will likely be asked about it when he addresses the council, most likely a week later. ElBaradei is also expected to report to the council the same day.
Bush said he wants to push for a vote on the resolution soon after that council meeting. But France is in no hurry, and neither are Russia and other council members.
"France doesn't see the use of a second resolution, as long as inspections are producing results, as long as the inspectors aren't telling us they're at an impasse," French Cabinet spokesman Jean-Francois Cope told Europe-1 radio on Sunday.
Fox News' Eric Shawn and Jim Angle and The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
