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PARIS, March 16, Kyodo - French President Jacques Chirac proposed on Sunday shortening the deadline for Iraq to disarm to 30 days instead of four months, the French presidential office said. French officials said Chirac unveiled the proposal in an interview the U.S. media to be broadcast later Sunday, saying that France is ready to consider the proposition. The White House has already rejected a similar proposal Chilean President Ricardo Lagos made on Friday. Chirac held the interview prior to an emergency summit later Sunday of the United States, Britain and Spain in the Azores islands. France, Germany and Russia...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Despite U.S. insistence on a U.N. vote on Friday, new British proposals could push any decision on a resolution authorizing war with Iraq past that date, Security Council diplomats said. After an extraordinarily chaotic day of diplomatic maneuvering on Wednesday, Britain, with only provisional backing from the United States, circulated six tests to Security Council members that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had to fulfill to avoid war. Should undecided nations agree to the proposals, British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock was reported to have told council members his country would not hold them to a Friday vote,...

March 12, 2003 U.S. Would Accept Short Extension of Iraq DeadlineBy RICHARD W. STEVENSON with FELICITY BARRINGER ASHINGTON, March 11 — The Bush administration said today that it would accept a short extension of United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq beyond the deadline of Monday it proposed last week, but signaled that diplomatic efforts to delay or avert war had all but run their course. The White House said President Bush would force a vote by the end of the week in the deeply fractured Security Council on an American-backed resolution giving an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader....

Just reported by the Fox UN reporter that 6 of the undecided nations are discussing a 45 day deadline, instead of the March 17th deadline.

CBS News White House Correspondent Peter Maer reports the Bush administration views March 21 as the ultimate deadline for compliance, and rejected out of hand an extension to April 17. French diplomats said the resolution would still mean authorizing war, which France is unwilling to do. Russia and France have threatened to veto the measure. Whether the slightly longer time frame for inspections is acceptable to the undecided nations — Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan — remains to be seen. Pakistan's prime minister Monday said for the first time publicly that his country, a key swing vote on...

Well, if you didn’t think it was going to happen then either “Hi, I’m amazingly naïve” is your middle name or you are doing the “ostrich” and sticking your head in the sand to avoid the truth but either way you are kidding yourself. As the United States stands poised to liberate the Iraqi people from the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein, in an effort to rid the world of one of its most successful terrorist enterprises, it would seem that his war has already begun. As is the “master manipulator’s” grandiose nature, and having already acquired the assistance of...

More signs that the President is a man on a mission. Ari Fleischer, responding to stories that the US may delay action against Iraq to appease some other countries just said "a 30 or 45-day delay is a non-starter."

WASHINGTON, March 11 (UPI) -- White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Tuesday that diplomatic discussions at the United Nations Security Council might postpone the March 17 deadline for Saddam Hussein to disarm, but he said the 45-day proposal of six undecided nations was a "nonstarter." Fleischer said President George W. Bush continued calls Tuesday to gather support for a new U.N. resolution to compel Iraq to give up its weapons of mass destruction and abide by Resolution 1441 passed last fall. He said Bush had a good discussion with the prime minister of Angola, one of six rotating nations...

<p>French President Jacques Chirac, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov have said France and Russia will vote against a resolution requiring Iraq to disarm by March 17.</p> <p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With announcements Monday from Russia and France that they would veto a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution that could express international support for a war against Iraq, the White House said it might accept further changes before presenting the resolution for a vote.</p>

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The six undecided members of the U.N. Security Council weighed delaying a deadline for Iraqi compliance to April 17, a month later than demanded in a U.S.-British-Spanish draft resolution, diplomats said on Monday. But Pakistan's U.N. ambassador, Munir Akram, said this was not yet a common position, with some of the six wanting a shorter and others seeking a longer extension. If the six were to agree on a compromise plan, this could interfere with U.S. hopes for a vote this week on a draft resolution that would give Baghdad until March 17 to fully cooperate...

Washington will have enough forces bristling on the borders of Iraq to launch a strike as soon as the March 17 disarmament deadline it is seeking expires, but it looks likely to wait a few days longer. Analysts said that, despite soaring temperatures which would make battle uncomfortable, U.S. Central Command chief General Tommy Franks may even seek a delay until April 1 to resolve a hitch in plans for a thrust into northern Iraq and have a moonless sky for aerial bombing. Britain, supported by the United States, has proposed giving Iraq a March 17 ultimatum to cooperate fully...

If George Bush's plans for the Middle East work, he will go down as one of the greatest Presidents, and as a benefactor of all mankind Bruce Anderson 10 March 2003 Great events confound the minds of men. Eighteen months ago, who would have thought that George Bush would turn into a liberal imperialist, while Tony Blair became a Eurosceptic? This is, of course, a description which the PM would repudiate with incredulity, as would the Foreign Office, still in denial about the significance of recent events, which have destroyed the Government's euro-diplomacy. But Mr Blair is a Eurosceptic, objectively....

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Britain's ambassador to the United Nations said on Monday he did not expect a resolution setting a March 17 ultimatum to Iraq would be brought to a vote in the Security Council on Tuesday. Sir Jeremy Greenstock told reporters: "I do not expect in the circumstances we find ourselves in just now that there would be a vote on our draft resolution within the next 24 hours." U.S. ambassador John Negroponte confirmed there would be no vote Tuesday. The United States and Britain originally set Tuesday as the target date for a vote. The resolution gives...

<p>United Nations, March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Six members of the United Nations Security Council asked the U.S., U.K. and Spain to push back until April 17 a deadline for Iraq to disarm, putting pressure on the U.S. to accept a further delay in its efforts to gain support for military action.</p>

Britain and the United States will launch a desperate drive to win wider support for a war on Iraq today by agreeing to important concessions on a second UN resolution. The two countries have decided to delay until later this week a vote in the Security Council and have accepted the idea of a short, clear "checklist" of disarmament demands for Saddam Hussein, defining the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction yet to be accounted for. British diplomats in New York will even discuss suggestions from the so-called "swing six" Security Council members that the 17 March deadline for compliance by...

LONDON - Britain would consider a compromise U.N. resolution that extends an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein beyond the March 17 deadline already proposed, Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman said Monday. A compromise resolution could give Saddam a specific list of demands based on weapons inspectors' assessment of gaps in Iraqi disarmament, he said, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity. "There are a number of key areas where there are key questions," the spokesman said, adding that Saddam had failed to state where he was hiding suspected mustard gas, sarin and VX nerve gas. The U.N. Security Council could demand the...