U.S. Raises Prospect of Abandoning Effort for U.N. Vote
By JOEL BRINKLEY
ASHINGTON, March 13 — The Bush administration, acknowledging today that its drive to build support for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq
had bogged down, said it was willing to postpone the vote until next week, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell even suggested that Washington
might simply drop its push for a vote altogether.
"The options remain — go for a vote and see what members say, or not go for a vote," Secretary Powell told a Congressional committee. "All the options that
you can imagine are before us, and we will be examining them today, tomorrow and into the weekend."
For the last week, President Bush insisted that Friday was the iron-fast deadline for a decision, and that the United States would call for a vote by then no matter
what the vote count appeared to be. But with the diplomatic situation deteriorating, Secretary Powell's statement showed that the Bush administration was
moving to hedge its bets.
In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair also said that chances were dimming for passage of the resolution, which would provide broad United Nations backing for
a military move against Baghdad.
The Conservative opposition leader Duncan Smith said after meeting with Mr. Blair at 10 Downing Street, "The prime minister today told me that although they
want to try to secure a second resolution in the U.N. and will continue to do so, that second resolution is now probably less likely than at any time before."
As their prospects darkened, both Washington and London angrily laid blame today on the French.
One day after Britain floated a new compromise proposal before the Security Council, the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "France rejected the
British proposal even before the Iraqis did." That sentiment was echoed in London. "I find it extraordinary that without even proper consideration, the French
government has decided they will reject these proposals," Foreign Minister Jack Straw said.
The British proposal set out six benchmark tests that Iraq would have to pass in the next week or so to avert an invasion, like producing the anthrax and VX
nerve gas that United Nations inspectors found in past years or providing documentation that it had been destroyed.
Washington offered only qualified acceptance of the British plan on Wednesday. By today it was clear that the proposal had not turned the tide.
On Wednesday, Washington and London counted Guinea among three countries on the 15-member Security Council that had informally agreed to back the
resolution, which is sponsored by the United States, Britain and Spain. But today, Guinea announced on state radio that it might abstain, putting among the six
undecided members. The other two nations said to be willing to vote for the resolution, Angola and Cameroon, have said nothing publicly about how they
intend to vote.
Chile is another country that Washington had looked to for support. Chile recently completed a free-trade agreement with Washington that awaits
Congressional ratification. But when reporters asked President Ricardo Lagos today if he would vote with the United States, he responded, "No, that is not
true."
The White House said President Bush, as he has all week, was continuing to call world leaders to seek support. Britain, meanwhile, was furiously working to
tailor its new proposal to try to gain support.
One important provision calls on Saddam Hussein to give a televised address in which he will admit that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction, something
Iraq has steadfastly denied, and will give them up.
Mr. Straw, the British foreign secretary, said London was willing to drop the television idea, given that other Security Council members had objected to it.
"If the only issue between us, our partners in the Security Council and Saddam Hussein is whether or not he makes a TV broadcast," Straw said, "then we'd
happily drop that."
Iraq issued a blistering rejection of the British proposal today, particularly that provision.
Foreign Minister Naji Sabri called the British proposal "an aggressive plan for war." And referring to the demand that Mr. Hussein appear on television, he
added: "Britain and the United States, in their attempts to personalize the issue and distract from the real intentions of their colonialist and Zionist plot against
Arabs and Muslims, are trying to focus on individuals. There is no reason whatsoever for this."
Even as Iraq attacked the British plan, it issued another statement that seemed intended to undermine it. Baghdad said it would submit a report to United Nations
weapons inspectors on Friday that would detail how it had disposed of its VX nerve agent. A similar report on its anthrax stores would be forthcoming "in a few
days," the Iraqis said.
The United States has asserted since last summer that Iraq maintains vast stores of these and other chemical and biological agents, but Iraq has repeatedly
insisted that it destroyed those stockpiles long ago. For months, weapons inspectors have been pushing Iraq to provide documentation of that.
At the Untied Nations today, Secretary General Kofi Annan repeated his call for compromise, saying, "I would urge all council members to cooperate and work in
search of that compromise."
But no one seemed to be in a compromising mood. France's foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, quickly rejected the new British proposal. "It's not a
question of giving Iraq a few more days before committing to the use of force," he said. "It's about making resolute progress toward peaceful disarmament, as
mapped out by inspections that offer a credible alternative to war."
Within hours, Germany and Russia fell in line with France rejecting the new proposal, with Russia repeating its threat to veto any resolution calling for military
action, even indirectly.
Asked today why the United States and Britain were finding it so difficult to win support for their resolution, Secretary Powell said that some council members
had apparently not understood that "the U.S. was deadly serious" when the council approved a resolution last November threatening "serious consequences" if
Iraq did not disarm.
As the diplomatic situation grew murkier, war planning continued. A United States military spokesman confirmed that several B-2 stealth bombers had left their
base in Missouri overnight and now were in the Persian Gulf. And Britain dispatched 850 more troops to the region.
The British defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, acknowledging the uncertainty of the current situation, said the additional forces would provide "further flexibility to
respond to a range of possible tasks and circumstances."
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