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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (1376)	3/10/2003 7:22:08 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Posted 3/10/2003 3:41 PM U.S. may extend deadline on Iraq URL:http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-10-iraq-usat_x.htm By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The United States and Britain considered further changes Monday to a United Nations resolution clearing the way for war against Iraq as they faced veto threats from France and Russia. Officials of both governments said they were considering extending by a short time the March 17 deadline for Iraq to prove it has complied with U.N. disarmament demands. The extension could be coupled with a detailed list of disarmament goals Iraq must complete by that date, they said. "There are ideas that are being explored and looked at," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he hoped those moves could break a bitter stalemate among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The United States and Britain are pushing for a resolution that would give international sanction to a war against Iraq; France, Russia and China oppose it. Straw appeared to be seeking a middle ground, which could further delay the start of a war. "What we are proposing is eminently reasonable," Straw said in a speech to Parliament in which he seemed to soften the demands being made on Iraq. "We are not expecting Saddam to have disarmed in a week or so, but to demonstrate by that time the full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation demanded of him." There was no indication whether the United States would go along with that statement. The Bush administration has been adamant that Iraq is long past its deadline for disarming and must face the "serious consequences" called for in an earlier U.N. resolution. Bush maintains that the United States and its allies have the authority to wage war on Iraq regardless of how the Security Council vote turns out. But U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said if the United States acts without council assent, it would violate the U.N. charter. "The legitimacy and support for any such action would be seriously impaired," he said. As the council moved toward a likely vote on Wednesday, the Bush administration mounted a telephone lobbying blitz that sought to persuade countries on the 15-member council to back the resolution. Bush spoke to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and Secretary of State Colin Powell lobbied top officials of Guinea, Angola, Mexico and Pakistan. Underscoring the difficulty of their task, French President Jacques Chirac and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said their countries would vote against the resolution as currently written, which would automatically veto it. Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali said his country could not support any resolution that it sees as paving the way for war. Fleischer expressed irritation at chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix for painting a too-rosy picture of Saddam's cooperation in a council briefing on Friday. Fleischer said Blix paid scant attention to Iraq's program to develop unmanned drone aircraft that could be used to dispense chemical or biological agents. The drone program had been highlighted in a presentation Secretary of State Colin Powell made to the council Feb. 5 because it violates range limits and is of "no small concern," Fleischer said. In addition, the United States is worried about a modified missile warhead inspectors have discovered in Iraq that appears to be a cluster weapon capable of delivering chemical or biological agents. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, planned to raise the issues at a closed-door council meeting Monday afternoon. But there was no indication that the protests were having any effect on undecided council members. Iraq, meanwhile, scrapped six more of its banned al-Samoud 2 missiles, bringing the total destroyed to 52, roughly half its declared arsenal. The missiles have been found to violate a U.N.-imposed range limit of 93 miles.