U.S. Raises Pressure on Russia and France for Iraq Resolution
NITED NATIONS, Oct. 25 — In a tense three-way contest in the Security
Council, the United States pressed today for rapid approval of its tough draft
resolution to disarm Iraq while France and Russia presented their own informal
texts designed to moderate the threat of military attack.
American diplomats, further stepping up the pressure on reluctant allies, put the Council on notice today that the United States might call for a vote on its draft at any time.
While the American diplomats signaled that they had no immediate plans for a vote, they made it clear that Washington was not prepared to consider major changes to the draft or formally discuss any other.
The texts circulated by France and Russia were both working documents whose purpose was to make it easier for Council nations to contrast them with the United States draft. France has assured the United States that it has no intention of initiating a frontal challenge by introducing its text into formal deliberations. Russia indicated that was also its approach for the time being.
Today was the first full day of negotiations for the 15-member Council on the United States proposal, which is co-sponsored by Britain. In a closed session, the 10 nonpermanent members, who only received the draft officially for the first time on Wednesday, conveyed their comments on it.
After the meetings there were competing assessments of the results. French diplomats said that at least nine Council members had criticized the American proposal.
James B. Cunningham, the United States' deputy representative, spoke with equal confidence about getting "the broadest agreement that we can find." Other diplomats said that at least four rotating members — Bulgaria, Colombia, Guinea and Norway — had indicated support for the United States' approach.
Since the United States introduced its four-page draft this week, American officials have laid out the elements they consider to be indispensable. The resolution must have a toughened inspection system, they have said, to ensure that United Nations inspectors gain complete access to any sites they chose as well as to Iraqi experts and documents.
It must also refer to Iraq's "material breach" of past Security Council resolutions, the officials said. Today American diplomats distributed a list of nine Council measures since 1991 that found Iraq to have made such breaches.
"That's not a subjective term there," said Richard A. Grenell, the spokesman for Ambassador John D. Negroponte. "That's just a statement of fact."
American diplomats said this language was central because it could allow them to argue, if Iraq balked at the arms inspections, that Baghdad's new violations compounded its past ones and nullified the cease-fire agreements that ended the Persian Gulf war in 1991. This would open the legal way for military action.
The United States is also insisting on warning Iraq of "serious consequences" if it does not relinquish its most dangerous weapons through the inspections.
In its proposal today, France made a concession to the United States by strengthening its own language about "serious consequences" and placing it at the end, a location normally reserved in the Council's resolutions for threats to be acted upon.
However, France made no mention of any "material breach." French officials have called this phrase a "hidden trigger" that could permit the United States to declare war by itself on President Saddam Hussein.
"This is war and peace," a French diplomat said today. "You cannot adopt a text with ambiguities."
Russia, struggling with a crisis in Moscow in which Chechen terrorists have seized a Moscow theater and taken hundreds of people hostage, has emerged in the last two days as Washington's firmest opponent. The Russian proposal did little to strengthen the weapons inspections issue, and included no mention of "material breach" or "serious consequences" — that is, no threat of military action.
Ambassador Sergey Lavrov has shown Russia's frustration that Washington was insisting on focusing world attention on Iraq while Moscow faced an unfolding emergency.
American officials argued that they did not need a Security Council resolution to attack Baghdad because President Bush had already secured the necessary authorization from Congress. They said their goal was to get United Nations backing for tough weapons inspections.
"The real hidden trigger is no resolution at all," Mr. Grenell said.
But French diplomats said they were optimistic that the negotiations were progressing.
"We don't exchange bitter words," one diplomat said. "We exchange compromise formulas."
Iraq, in a letter Thursday to Secretary General Kofi Annan that was released today, accused the United States of blocking the inspectors from meeting an Oct. 19 deadline for returning to Iraq.
Iraq said that any new resolution on the inspections would be "incompatible"
with those agreements.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/26/international/middleeast/26NATI.html
<<u.gif>>
