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Pastimes : GET THE U.S. OUT of The U.N NOW! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (321)	10/17/2002 12:28:53 PM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Respond to of 411

U.S. Offers U.N. Resolution Deal Thu Oct 17,11:49 AM ET By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Facing strong opposition from dozens of nations, the United States has backed down from its demand that a new U.N. resolution must authorize military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with weapons inspectors, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday. Instead, the United States is now floating a compromise which would give inspectors a chance to test Iraq's will to cooperate on the ground. If Iraq then failed to disarm, the Bush administration would agree to return to the Security Council for further debate and possibly another resolution authorizing action. The new compromise also drops tough wording explicitly threatening Iraq upfront, although the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a threat of consequences will be implied. The diplomats said France, which has been the main stumbling block for the United States, was studying the new offer amid a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at solving an impasse among the Security Council powers on Iraq. During an open Security Council debate on Iraq, which started Wednesday and continued Thursday, more than two dozen nations — including Iraq's closest neighbors and key U.S. allies — refused to endorse the Bush administration's demand for an authorization of military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspections. They said Iraq must be given a chance to completely disarm without the imminent threat of military action. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of Britain, whose country is supporting the U.S. position, said the emphasis was on reaching a deal that all sides could accept. "We're looking for unity in the council," he said. Many U.N. members favor the two-resolution approach proposed by France and backed by Russia and China. Under the French approach, the first resolution would toughen U.N. inspections and warn Iraq that it will face consequences, including the possible use of force, if it doesn't comply with inspections. The second would authorize action against Iraq if it failed to cooperate. "Every possible effort should be made to avert war," Bangladesh's U.N. Ambassador Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told the council on Thursday. In speech after speech, ambassadors from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America called Iraq's decision last month to allow U.N. inspectors to return an important first step — and said the council should send the inspectors back quickly and test Baghdad's commitment. Many warned that a new war would add to the suffering of the Iraqi people, possibly engulf the Middle East in conflict, and have dire consequences on global stability and the world economy. "This war is useless because its motives are not well-founded," Tunisia's U.N. Ambassador Noureddine Mejdoub said Wednesday. "It would unleash a chain of reactions in Iraq and in the region." The council meeting was held at the behest of the Nonaligned Movement, comprising 115 mainly developing countries that favor a peaceful solution in Iraq, and it was open to all 191 U.N. member states. Some 50 nations that aren't on the council took up the opportunity, and they were speaking ahead of the 15 council members who will wrap up the debate on Thursday. Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri was pleased at the opposition to military action and support for the return of inspectors in Wednesday's speeches. He said he expected to hear more of the same on Thursday. Reiterating that Iraq would cooperate with the U.N. inspectors "in every possible way," al-Douri told the council that the United States was attempting "to hamper and delay the return of inspectors" to adopt a new resolution which would serve as "a pretext to cover aggression against Iraq." Since the 1980s, Iraq has gone to war with two of its neighbors — Iran and Kuwait — but neither supported an immediate authorization to use force. Both urged the Iraqi government to strictly comply with all U.N. resolutions to avert war. "Any use of force must be a last resort and within the United Nations (news - web sites) framework and only after all other available means have been exhausted," said Kuwait's Ambassador Mohammad Abulhasan. Several U.S. allies — the European Union (news - web sites), Canada, Australia and New Zealand — backed the U.S. view that after 11 years of failing to comply with U.N. resolutions, Iraq should be given a tough new mandate spelling out that inspectors must have unconditional and unrestricted access to all sites. However, none of the allies called for a new resolution to include a green light for military action. Denmark's U.N. Ambassador Ellen Margrethe Loj, speaking on behalf of the EU, said: "The government of Iraq should make no mistake about the fact that noncompliance with this inspection regime would have serious consequences."

To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (321)	2/9/2003 7:43:50 PM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 411

He recalled the failure of U.N. soldiers to protect civilians in the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, where more than 7,500 were slaughtered in the summer of 1995. story.news.yahoo.com. Germany - France and Germany intend to present a proposal to the U.N. Security Council next week to send U.N. soldiers to disarm Iraq, the German defense minister said Sunday. The plan, according to a German newsmagazine, involves reconnaissance missions, the deployment of thousands of U.N. peacekeepers and tripling the number of U.N. weapons inspectors. In Paris, the French government on Sunday denied the existence of a "secret plan" with Germany, saying France had previously proposed increasing the number of arms inspectors. That denial — plus Defense Minister Peter Struck's inability to offer concrete details of the reported plan — created an appearance of disarray in the Franco-German alliance against Washington's hard-line stance on Iraq. The reported plan drew harsh criticism from U.S. officials including Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), who called it an ineffective ploy by Berlin and Paris to delay military action. Powell, in Washington, bluntly dismissed the proposal. Increasing the number of U.N. inspectors would be "a diversion, not a solution," he said. "The issue is not more inspectors. The issue is compliance on the part of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)," Powell said in a television interview. News of the plan emerged as hundreds of leading government officials and security experts attended a two-day defense conference in Munich, which ended Sunday. Still, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who attended the conference, learned nothing about the reported plan in meetings with both the French and German defense ministers. "Rumsfeld was here for 24 hours meeting with German and French officials and no one told him anything. That was not an auspicious start," a senior U.S. official at the Munich meeting said on condition of anonymity. Addressing the conference, Struck said the starting point for the French-German proposal was a French initiative to increase the number of inspectors in Iraq "in order to give them a better chance to succeed." He said the proposal would be presented to the Security Council on Feb. 14 after chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix reports on the situation in Iraq — and that Germany would consider sending troops as part of a U.N. force. "We are standing shoulder to shoulder with France and we hope that this initiative will be positively received in the Security Council," Struck told German television Sunday. U.S. officials, however, said the plan as reported was problematic because it required Iraqi cooperation with inspectors and assumed that U.N. peacekeepers could be effective in a "difficult environment." "It's a plan as far as we can tell whose purpose is to block U.S. military action and not make meaningful inspections — but we don't know," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He recalled the failure of U.N. soldiers to protect civilians in the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, where more than 7,500 were slaughtered in the summer of 1995. But Belgium backed the German-French plans Sunday, saying they were a chance to avoid war. "We are right to stay on the side of the French and Germans because there are still many questions to be posed and answered," Foreign Minister Louis Michel said. Rumsfeld emerged from a 45-minute meeting with Struck on Saturday saying he still knew nothing about the plan, but said inspections could only work if Iraq cooperates.