Bush, Blair press U.N. - allies to set deadline, offer new resolution citing Iraqi 'breach'

UNITED NATIONS - Facing global opposition to a rush to war, the United States and Britain will introduce a new U.N. resolution in the coming days and set a deadline for Iraq to cooperate fully with weapons inspectors, Britain's U.N. ambassador said Wednesday.

Diplomats said the resolution would declare Iraq in "material breach" of its obligations to disarm, a requirement for any military action. The two allies will present the deadline separately, and they will demand a decision on the resolution in two or three weeks, said the U.S. and British diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The diplomats said the deadline would put all parties on notice that war is looming unless Iraq demonstrates that it is actively cooperating with inspectors.

British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said the draft resolution would force the Security Council, which strongly supports continued inspections, to decide whether to authorize military action or to continue inspections if Iraq begins to disarm.

He predicted that debate over this "crunch decision" would go beyond March 1, when chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix is due to present his next written report to the council. That would push back the U.S. timetable for a possible war, ruling out February and optimum weather conditions.

The United States and Britain believe "a decision one way or the other has got to be made within weeks, not months," Mr. Greenstock said.

Diplomats acknowledged that a U.S.-British resolution still lacks the nine votes it needs to be adopted by the Security Council, and there is no guarantee that France, Russia or China, which favor continued inspections, would refrain from vetoing a new resolution.

Several other council members, including Mexico and Chile, reiterated privately that they would abstain on the resolution unless the United States and Britain found a way to ease tensions with France, Russia and China.

U.S. and British officials said the final language in the resolution has not been decided by President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair but that both were close to agreement.

In Baghdad on Wednesday, President Saddam Hussein said Iraq doesn't want war with the United States, but he added that if the United States carries out its threats to attack, Iraq will "triumph over it, God willing."

"Iraq doesn't want war," Mr. Hussein told a visiting delegation of Russian lawmakers. But he added that peace "at any cost" was unacceptable. "We will not relinquish our independence, our dignity and our right to live and act freely."

Mr. Hussein spoke as Mr. Bush again urged the United Nations to threaten force to disarm Iraq. U.N. weapons inspectors, meanwhile, visited five sites involved in the manufacture of a missile that Dr. Blix said is proscribed.

Mr. Bush criticized the United Nations for not forcing compliance to a resolution adopted after the 1991 Gulf War ordering Iraq to give up weapons of mass destruction.

"If the United Nations can't enforce its own resolution - a resolution which, by the way, has been around for 12 years - it says something about its utility as we head into the future," he said.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that Mr. Bush "intends to work with our friends and allies to offer a resolution either this week or next."

"And the president has made repeatedly clear that the preferable outcome is for the United Nations to act," he said Wednesday.

But the council is bitterly divided over Iraq's cooperation with the terms of Resolution 1441, passed Nov. 27, which gave Baghdad a final opportunity to disarm or face "serious consequences."

The United States and Britain contend that Iraq is not providing substantive cooperation. France, Russia, China, Germany and other council members counter that Baghdad is starting to cooperate more actively and therefore inspections should continue.

At the end of a two-day open Security Council meeting dominated by calls for a peaceful solution to the crisis, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri pledged that his country "will continue to cooperate constructively."

"Iraq is determined to cooperate both in substance and in process in order to cut off at the knees any allegations that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction," he said.

Nearly 60 countries spoke out at the council, with the majority urging that all avenues to peacefully disarm the country be pursued before resorting to war.

The United States and Britain received support from countries including Australia, Japan, South Korea, Albania, Macedonia and Nicaragua. None of them is a member of the Security Council.

Canada's U.N. Ambassador Paul Heinbecker called on the council to direct inspectors to list Iraq's key disarmament tasks immediately and decide on those that need urgent action. The council should then set an "early deadline" to assess compliance, he said.

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of England walk out to address the media in Cross Hall at the White House Nov. 7. "We've got no better friend in the world than Great Britain," said the President during his remarks. White House photo by Paul Morse.

UNITED NATIONS - Facing global opposition to a rush to war,

Uh-huh. Rush to war. No bias here. It's not like "rush to war" is a subjective description like "terrorist."

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