>>6 Words Separate U.S., France on Iraq Language - Optimism Renewed at U.N. on Inspections
By Karen DeYoung and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 31, 2002; Page A19
When the smoke cleared after yesterday's round of U.N. Security Council negotiations over an Iraq resolution, the United States and France remained separated by six words on a key point of contention.
The question was how to decide if Iraq has failed to cooperate with new United Nations weapons inspections. France believes it should be a U.N. decision, and has proposed inserting the words "when established by the Security Council" into the operative sentence.
In the latest U.S. proposal, that sentence says "failure by Iraq to comply with, and cooperate fully with the implementation of this resolution [France would add its phrase here] shall constitute a . . . material breach" of its international obligations. The U.S. version doesn't say how the determination would be made or who would make it. France, along with Russia and China, suspects the Americans want to reserve the decision for themselves, all the better to launch a military attack.
These seemingly esoteric debates over vocabulary and syntax are the stuff of which wars are made, postponed or avoided. The negotiations have been underway for six weeks, less than an eye-blink by normal U.N. standards, interminable to the Bush administration.
But after several days of warnings that U.S. patience was running out, this week has brought new optimism. "There has genuinely been a meeting of the minds," British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, whose government is the closest U.S. ally on the council, told the BBC yesterday. "I think the final outcome will be a good one."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, "I believe that with a little more hard work on the part of all concerned, we can accommodate the interests of our friends without in any way . . . handcuffing the United States."
Senior administration officials, many of whom have repeatedly described chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix as too weak to stand up to Iraqi deceptions, were suddenly bullish on Blix. "He's being very helpful to us," said one official after Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed El Baradei met at the White House with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz.
The White House declined to comment on the talks, except to say that there was little discussion of the specific language of the resolution, including concerns Blix has raised about some of the new U.S.-proposed inspection guidelines.
"We want to see how we can make this work," said National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack. "We'd like nothing better than to have peaceful, effective disarmament of Iraq through an inspection regime."
Although Powell on Saturday said that this was a make-or-break week for the U.S.-drafted resolution, he revised the timetable yesterday, saying in a National Public Radio interview that the situation "will break one way or the other . . . toward the end of next week." Several officials noted that the administration decided it would be politically unwise to force a vote, and possibly provoke a U.N. crisis, before Election Day next Tuesday.
Although from the outside it has sometimes seemed like watching paint dry, the Security Council has made significant progress in a relatively short time.
The dispute that vexed members for weeks -- U.S. insistence on one resolution that would set up tough inspections of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, and set out consequences if Iraq failed to cooperate, including possible military action; versus French insistence on separating the inspections and consideration of possible consequences into two separate resolutions -- has been settled.
"We've got agreement on the idea of a two-stage approach," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in an interview published Monday in Le Figaro. Powell, in a Le Monde interview published Tuesday, said, "We listened carefully, and tried to get over" the one-two argument. "We did it." The solution was to call for the council to immediately convene once Iraqi noncooperation was demonstrated, without specifying whether the meeting would debate a second resolution on military action, or merely discuss the matter in a way Powell said would not "handcuff" the United States.
A second dispute over the words "material breach," used in the past as U.N. code to justify military action, appears halfway resolved. The Americans want to blend Iraqi breaches of past U.N. resolutions with potential breach of the one currently under discussion into one paragraph they believe would make it easier to move forward to guarantee future punishment. France, Russia and China are content to declare material breaches in the past, and worry that any mention of a future "breach" could be interpreted by the United States as an endorsement of military action.
Thus, the most recent French language says that only the council can decide whether a new breach has occurred. The French proposal would also grant the council exclusive right to judge whether Iraq has made any "false statements or omissions" in a declaration of its weapons program the new resolution requires.
"The French and the United States are narrowing in on an agreement, but they have not yet bridged the gap," one council diplomat said. But "France wouldn't want to be in the same camp with the U.S. and Britain if Russia and China are abstaining." The French spent much of Tuesday and yesterday trying to persuade the Russians and Chinese to back their language.
In one sign of progress, Russian U.N. Ambassador Sergey Lavrov told the council he had no objection in principle to the use of the phrase "material breach." But Lavrov said his government needed more clarity that it would not be used as a "hidden trigger" for military action.
A senior U.N.-based Chinese official said, "We appreciate the French effort, but we didn't solve all our concerns. The trigger is buried deeper, but it's still there."<<
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