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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (370793)	3/13/2003 3:14:34 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Respond to of 769670

Two Choices at U.N.: War or War A vote in the U.N. Security Council is still up in the air. Stewart Stogel reports that two scenarios are developing. Scenario One The first scenario is that the new U.K. "trial balloon" giving Saddam "six benchmarks" to meet in short order gets some traction among the Security Council's elected 10 members. If this happens, Washington will give London a few extra days to fine-tune its proposal. That could put off a vote until early next week. Privately, France and Russia are more than a little angry with Tony Blair's proposal, and may decide to give it the thumbs-down today. Should that happen, the U.S may try to force a vote late today, claiming Paris and Moscow are impeding the will of the majority of the Council. The U.S./U.K. intent would be to garner nine votes and force a French or Russian veto. Washington would most probably lose the vote, but might get no vetoes. A vote of 4 yes, 0 no, 11 abstentions, or 9 yes and no vetoes is needed. The Iraqis tell NewsMax the "fix is in," and that they feel the U.S. will railroad the Council no matter what happens. Scenario Two The second scenario assumes that the U.K. proposal is no more than window dressing, last-minute maneuvering for U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair's political future in the Labour Party. Many in the Council expressed serious doubts about the U.K. proposal. There was a strong opinion that the British proposal was not workable. Baghdad itself rejected it Thursday morning. Therefore, if the U.K. proposal does not gain traction it is believed that Washington will move quickly for a vote in the Council. That vote could come as early as Thursday evening, but more likely Friday or Saturday. If the U.S./U.K. resolution is voted down, U.S. diplomats say the March 17 deadline for Saddam to surrender his illegal weapons is then "off the table." However, most diplomats believe that March 17 may unofficially still hold because the U.N. needs time to evacuate its arms inspectors and the Pentagon still has some key combat units still en route to the Gulf. newsmax.com