Bush, Top Allies Gather at Azores Summit - Down To The Wire

AP ^ | 16 March, 2003

[Happy2BMe]

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Doubtful a final effort to gain U.N. backing for a U.S.-led invasion into Iraq (news - web sites) will prove successful, President Bush (news - web sites) and his two top allies hoped a brief summit on Sunday would increase the pressure Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

AP Photo

Departing early from the Camp David retreat where he spent the weekend, Bush was flying more than halfway across the Atlantic Ocean to meet for less than five hours with British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

The summit in Portugal's Azores archipelago was billed as the final push for a diplomatic solution to disarming Saddam.

"Is it time to bring the curtain down on this or is there some hope?" Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said, previewing the discussions.

"It's not a war council, and ultimatums are not the issue today. The issue today is, `Has the diplomatic track run its course?'"

The summit also had a more symbolic purpose: to show the three leaders — particularly Blair and Aznar, who need political cover at home for their much-criticized alliance with Bush — as willing to make perhaps a final diplomatic push to win international backing for war.

Still, the chances appeared slim of finding a way through the U.N. impasse.

A senior U.S. official acknowledged it would be nearly impossible to round up the necessary votes to win passage in the Security Council for a U.S.-British-Spanish resolution authorizing war.

Aznar, in a BBC interview aired Sunday morning in London, said: "A further resolution would be politically desirable ... but from a legal point of view it is not indispensable."

But the U.S. official said the leaders' gathering would remind the world that the three countries head a coalition ready to act soon.

"I'm not expecting, really, a new proposal," Powell said. "There is a good, solid proposal on the table now."

The allies intended to try to raise the pressure on Saddam in a strong statement after their summit, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. France's insistence that it would veto any war authorization is seen as having eased the pressure on the Iraqi president to disarm.

"Some members of the council, frankly, have not been that helpful in applying maximum pressure to Saddam Hussein for him to do so," Powell said.

Weeks of tendered compromises and extended deadlines have not paid off for the White House. They only have contributed to an impression of waffling and given antiwar forces in Britain more time to attack Blair.

France and its two allies in the anti-war bloc, Russia and Germany, said in a joint declaration Saturday that there was no justification to use force and to stop weapons inspections. They called for a foreign ministers' meeting Tuesday to discuss a "realistic" timetable for Saddam to disarm.

With that intransigence among the opposing countries and little give in the undecided group, Bush, Blair and Aznar were seen as likely to decide to withdraw their resolution — either because they lack nine votes or merely to deny France the opportunity to cast a veto.

Bush, in his weekly radio address Saturday, sought to prepare both Americans and Iraqis for a war that could begin within days if the resolution is withdrawn.

[Happy2BMe]

Who needs permission?

[Hila]

"Who needs permission", exactly. I do hope that all the stalling has a true wise reason, something that is to our benefit. In the meantime it is still bla bla bla bla bla.