Allies on brink of abandoning UN route
US and Spain in mini-summit
Signs of imminent war grow
Bush outlines Israel peace plan
Sally Bolton and agencies
Friday March 14, 2003
President Bush will confer this weekend with the prime minister, Tony Blair, and his Spanish counterpart Jose Maria Aznar, in a mini-summit to finalise strategies as the UN route on Iraq appeared on the brink of being abandoned. The hastily-arranged conference, to be held in the Azores Islands, comes as Britain led a last-ditch effort to garner support for its draft UN resolution giving Iraq an ultimatum, within a short and clearly defined timetable, to disarm.
Senior US officials said the three leaders would be discussing strategies for salvaging the trio's troubled war resolution. The leaders also are likely to discuss plans for Iraq in any scenario in which President Saddam Hussein is deposed.
Billing it as a diplomatic summit, officials said the leaders will not discuss battlefield tactics and detailed military strategies, even as they acknowledged that President Bush was prepared to drop his bid for a UN resolution and fight Iraq without UN consent.
This weekend's summit was arranged after UN diplomats predicted failure for the draft second resolution on Iraq, co-proposed by the three pro-war powers. Mr Blair quickly accepted the proposal, US officials said, and Mr Aznar agreed this morning.
Mr Bush has said that without the UN, he would form a "coalition of the willing" to fight Saddam, which US officials say would include Britain and Spain.
The Azores Islands are a traditional mid-Atlantic refuelling stop about 900 miles west of Portugal. Portugal is among the countries that have offered Bush logistical support in any war in Iraq, granting US permission to use Lajes Field air base in the island chain.
News of the meeting first surfaced yesterday morning, but officials said planning had stopped, only to confirm hours later that talks had resumed amid tense discussions at the UN.
Signs of imminent war increase
For the first time, the secretary of state, Colin Powell, said yesterday that the resolution might be withdrawn and pointedly set a time frame that suggested the diplomatic effort would not extend beyond the weekend.
"We are working hard to see if we can take this to a vote ... but we haven't excluded any of the other obvious options that are out there," he said. "The day of reckoning is fast-approaching."
A senior administration official said the US was waiting for Mexico and Chile to decide whether they supported the compromise draft. In a constantly shifting lineup, the two Latin American countries could ensure the nine votes required for council approval - provided there was no veto, which both France and Russia have said they would cast.
With it looking doubtful that the draft resolution would even win a numerical majority on the security council, aides said America was ready to drop the resolution if Mr Blair decided not to put it to the UN, reversing the US's earlier position that it was set on calling a vote. At a news conference last week, Mr Bush said he was prepared for a vote, win or lose.
As the possibility of war loomed, Germany today urged its citizens to leave Iraq, stepping up earlier warnings, and Spain reissued a statement calling on Spaniards to leave because of the "rapidly deteriorating international situation".
The UN today pulled eight armoured personnel carriers and their Bangladeshi crews out of the UN-monitored demilitarised zone on the Iraq-Kuwaiti border, part of an announced partial withdrawal of observers as tensions build.
Yesterday the Queen cancelled a visit to Belgium, originally scheduled for next week, reinforcing speculation that war could begin around Wednesday March 19, once the manoeuvring at the UN is over.
Bush addresses Israel question
In another signal that war is imminent, President Bush today gave a statement on what he described as a "roadmap for peace" in the Middle East.
The US has long been under pressure from Britain to do more to secure a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, with many commentators arguing that America would have been better able to achieve international support for its war plans in Iraq if it had attempted to tackle the issue earlier.
"We have reached a hopeful moment for progress," Mr Bush said during a White House press appearance, in which he called on both sides to "abandon old hatreds and to meet their responsibility for peace".
The president said that he would unveil his long-sought plan once a new Palestinian prime minister with real governing authority takes office. The Palestinian council is expected to name a prime minister as early as next week. Yasser Arafat's choice for the job is his deputy, Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr Bush said the "roadmap" would set forth a sequence of steps, "goals shared by all the parties".
He said: "The government of Israel, as the terror threat is removed and security improves, must take concrete steps to support the emergence of a viable and credible Palestinian state and to work as quickly as possible toward a final status agreement."
"As progress is made toward peace, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end ... And the Arab states must oppose terrorism, support the emergence of a peaceful and democratic Palestine and state clearly that they will live in peace with Israel."
US hopes for Turkey plan fade
The president has sent a letter to the new Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will be sworn in this weekend, over plans to station US troops there. Vice president Dick Cheney has also called Mr Erdogan in the hope of securing permission to invade Iraq through Turkey or to use Turkish airspace for an attack.
However, senior administration officials told The New York Times that Turkey dismissed the latest appeals. One official familiar with the conversation between Mr Cheney and Mr Erdogan said "the message was clear that by the time Turkey got its act together, it would be too late to do us any good".
Within hours, Navy ships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles were told to move out of the Mediterranean and into the Red sea.
Blair faces political crisis
Should war begin next week without UN backing, the prime minister will face cabinet resignations from international development secretary Clare Short and possibly the leader of the Commons, Robin Cook, as well as a string of junior ministers and ministerial aides.
Mr Blair has also been threatened with a possible leadership challenge if he goes ahead with a war that lacks the explicit endorsement of the UN.
In a reflection of continuing unease within Labour's own ranks, leading rebel MP Alice Mahon today repeated her call for the government to publish the advice it had received on the legality of war without a fresh UN resolution.
"These are extremely special circumstances. It is clear the country is split down the middle about whether we should go to war," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"I just think we have a right to know before we commit our servicemen and women into what could be an illegal war."
Shadow attorney general Bill Cash said he had put down a parliamentary question on the issue.
"It is a question to the prime minister. I put it down on Tuesday and it asks whether the prime minister will disclose the legal basis on which military action in Iraq would be justified," Mr Cash told Today.
Mr Cash said there had been rumours that the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, disagreed with the government over the legality of military action.
"If the attorney general did not agree with the prime minister, we would be in a very serious constitutional crisis," he said.
Arrests at US bomber base
Two people were arrested after vehicles were damaged in a break-in at a British airbase where US B-52 bombers are stationed, the Ministry of Defence confirmed today.
A spokesman for the MoD said two people were arrested at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire last night. He said that damage was found on military vehicles following the arrests, but that no one had got near any planes at the base, where 14 US B-52 long-range bombers, expected to be at the forefront of any attack on Iraq, arrived last week.
A steady stream of peace protesters have arrived at the base since the planes touched down and a number of people have been arrested for breaking through security.
UN weapons inspectors continue work
UN weapons inspectors, meanwhile, were today supervising the destruction of four more banned Iraqi missiles at a site north of the capital Baghdad.
The latest destruction brings to 65 the number of Samoud 2 missiles crushed by Iraq since it met a March 1 deadline to destroy them after they were found to have a range beyond the 150km allowed by the UN.
The chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, is still insisting he has found no "smoking gun", despite the emergence of an undeclared Iraqi drone aircraft.
Dr Blix has said the inspections process needs to run for "months" more before its success or failure can be assessed. But there is little chance he will be given that time.
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