Britain, US at odds over Iraqi "benchmarks" - France, Russia promise veto

Agence France-Presse | March 11, 2003

[HAL9000]

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - France and Russia gave notice they would veto any UN Security Council resolution backing war with Iraq, as the first signs of discord surfaced between the US and Britain over measuring Iraqi compliance in disarming.

China has also toughened its anti-war stance with President Jiang Zemin telling US counterpart George W. Bush that the international community had a consensus on Iraq and the issue must be resolved through the Security Council.

"France will vote no" whatever the circumstance, French President Jacques Chirac said in a television interview late Monday.

And Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also said that if the motion is put to a vote "then Russia will use its vote against the resolution."

Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio planned to travel to Paris on Tuesday in a bid to try to persuade France not to block the resolution.

Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have repeatedly warned they would disarm Iraq by force even if they failed to win Council backing for military action, and the White House said the use of a veto would be "from a moral point of view, more than a disappointment."

The new draft resolution seeks UN authority to disarm Iraq by force unless the Council decides by March 17 that it is cooperating fully with UN weapons inspectors.

Bush and Blair have been engaged in all-out diplomatic efforts to rally support for the motion, which was expected to come to a vote at the 15-strong council Tuesday or Wednesday.

But the first signs of difference between Britain and the United States surfaced over the question of testing Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions.

Undecided council members have criticised the deadline, saying it is too short and does not include objective "benchmarks" for cooperation, and Britain appeared to be heading in a similar direction.

"We are examining whether a list of tests of Iraqi compliance would be a useful thing," Britain's ambassador to the UN, Jeremy Greenstock, said. "There are people who want greater clarity on what we are proposing in this resolution."

Asked whether it was not an "academic" exercise to continue wooing undecided members, Greenstock replied: "My instructions at the moment are to continue working for the draft resolution, and we will to continue to do that."

While the draft seemed doomed, Britain is particularly anxious to get nine votes to force a veto in order to appease public opinion at home.

Diplomats at the UN recalled that, at a public meeting of the Security Council on Friday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed the idea of benchmarks for Iraqi coooperation, saying Baghdad had had 12 years to disarm and had failed to so do.

Asked whether Britain and the United States were at odds, one diplomat said: "It is not a rift, but there are differences that were not there before."

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan delivered a warning to the US and Britain when he insisted: "if the US goes outside the Security Council, it will not be in conformity with the UN Charter."

Iraq's ambassador to the UN, Mohammed Aldouri, played down revelations that Iraq has a pilotless drone potentially able to disperse chemical or biological weapons.

Aldouri also said US intervention in Iraq, without the support of the United Nations, would be tantamount to "aggression."

Asked for his response to revelations over the existence of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) whose fuel capacity enables it to fly beyond the 150-kilometer (93-mile) range limit imposed by the United Nations, Aldouri said it was "not new information".

"Yes, it has been given yesterday by the media and by the American administration because they failed right now to convince other people with other kind of evidence that was presented already by Mr. (Colin) Powell (US Secretary of State) before the Security Council," he said.

"So this would not give the possibility to have another justification, another evidence -- so-called evidence, because all these allegations have been very well known by (UN weapons inspector) Mr. (Hans) Blix and by Iraqi side," Aldouri added.

In relation to what is looking increasingly likely to be a US war on Baghdad, Aldouri said: "... If the United States goes to war without the support of the United Nations that will be an aggression."

With around a quarter of a million battle-ready US troops prepared to invade Iraq -- and tens of thousands of British soldiers also standing by -- Powell has said military action could begin before March 17 if the resolution fails.

In a sign that a war may be fast approaching, US officials said the United States is poised to order most of its diplomats in nations near Iraq to leave for security reasons.

On Tuesday, non-aligned members of the United Nations were also to be given their opportunity to air their views at the Security Council, amid all-round heightened anti-war sentiment.

[goldstategop]

We should tell the U.K to grow a spine. Winston Churchill never thought his country needed someone else's permission to take on Nazi Germany. All Tony Blair has to know is the train is leaving the station and he can be on board or it'll steam ahead without him. We'll attack Iraq regardless of what happens at the UN this week and we really should have done so ages ago.

[DB]

I wouldn't give to much credence to a French paper.

[MEG33]

I'm with you.

[UncleSamUSA]

NEVER trust anything coming out of Agence France Presse, the miserable newsarm of the Surrender Monkeys