Also from NYT:
U.N. Chief Sees No 'Major Shift' in U.S. Resolution on Iraq
By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune
Published: October 14, 2003
ASHINGTON, Oct. 14 — The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said today that a new American draft resolution on Iraq did "not represent a major shift" from an earlier version, because it left in place an approach that would bring full Iraqi sovereignty only at the end of a long, multistep transition.
While some Security Council members said they saw the latest version of the resolution, first circulated by the United States over the weekend, as an improvement over two earlier drafts, France, Germany and Russia said they planned to propose further changes.
"This new draft further defines the vital role of the U.N. and addresses some of the concerns that some expressed about sovereignty," the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said.
Mr. McClellan told reporters that the draft might be formally introduced in the Security Council as early as today, and an American spokesman at the United Nations, Richard Grenell, said council members were being asked to be ready for a vote as soon as Wednesday.
Such an early vote appeared to be problematic, however, since France, Germany and Russia said they would offer amendments to the resolution. American officials, meantime, indicated that they would resist major changes.
The new resolution is expected to get the nine Security Council votes needed for passage, and none of the five permanent members of the 15-member panel has threatened a veto.
But the United States, Mr. Annan and others have said that a narrow approval vote — particularly if countries like France, Germany, Russia and China abstained — would lessen the effectiveness of a new resolution, which Washington has hoped will encourage other countries to contribute troops and financial aid to Iraq.
Mr. Annan, who has pressed the United States to plan a quick handover of power, said he was "grateful" that Washington had reflected some of his concerns in the new text, giving the secretary general leeway to take certain steps in Iraq "as circumstances permit." He has sharply reduced the United Nations presence in Iraq after several United Nations employees were killed there, but Mr. Annan promised today to find a way to implement a new resolution.
Mr. Annan noted, however, that the American proposal would still follow a sequence — writing a constitution, holding democratic elections, then handing over power — that would leave the American-led coalition forces as the occupying and governing power until the end.
And, he noted, "I am on the record as stating that as long as there's an occupation, the resistance will grow."
The draft resolution, co-sponsored by Britain and Spain, includes a much-noted phrase that describes the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and its ministers as "the principal bodies of the Iraqi interim administration, which will embody the sovereignty of the state of Iraq during the transitional period."
Asked by a reporter at United Nations headquarters in New York what that phrase meant to him, Mr. Annan replied, "It's a nice phrase, but the resolution also says that the occupying power is the authority and is the government."
"So in my judgment," he said, "the occupying power is the government, will remain the government whether this resolution is passed or not, until such time that power is fully handed over."
Other diplomats said it was difficult to see how Iraqi officials could "embody sovereignty" while Americans retained military control and ultimate political authority in the country.
"That is a contradiction," Said Ahmad, the head of Iraq's mission to the United Nations, told Bloomberg News. "If the Governing Council assumes sovereignty, it should mean it is a government with full authority. If not, it is not sovereign."
Ambassador Wang Guangye of China also said that the resolution included a "contradiction" on the question of sovereignty.
And in Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said Russia planned to introduce "very important" changes, Agence France-Presse reported.
Reuters reported that France, Germany and Russia, with support from China, would propose amendments calling on the Iraqi Governing Council, along with the United Nations and the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority, to develop a more specific schedule for a return to Iraqi control of Iraq.
The new proposals do not give the United Nations a central role in Iraq, however, nor do they set a five-month deadline for an interim Iraq government to take power, as France, Germany and Russia had proposed, Reuters said.
Washington wants the Security Council to pass the resolution before a major donors' conference for Iraq opens on Oct. 23 in Madrid.
The latest draft would set a Dec. 15 deadline for the Iraqi Governing Council, in cooperation with the Coalition Provisional Authority and the secretary general's special representative, to submit a timetable for drafting a constitution and for holding elections.
The deadline was an American concession to critics of the resolution's earlier version, including France, Germany and Mr. Annan, who have called for an accelerated program of American disengagement in the face of persistent violence against American-led forces.
According to the draft resolution, a multinational force in Iraq would remain under "unified command" led by the United States, while administrative power is "progressively" turned over to Iraqis. The Security Council would review the arrangement after a year.
"I have stated my views very clearly," Mr. Annan said. "Obviously, the current resolution does not represent a major shift in the thinking of the coalition."
His objections appear to have influenced some Security Council members on previous versions of the resolution. |
