UNITED NATIONS, 29 October — The chief UN arms inspector, Hans Blix, urged a divided UN Security Council yesterday to adopt a unified resolution so as to give full support to the team he intends to send to Iraq.
While Blix carefully avoided taking sides in the discussion between the United States and its opponents in the council, he did say it was helpful to warn Iraq that there would be consequences if it failed to cooperate. "We stressed the importance of having agreement and broad unity in the council," Blix told reporters as he emerged from consultations which lasted almost three hours.
The discussions, which also involved Mohammed El-Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), centered on a US draft resolution which would give the inspectors wider powers.
Blix said the intention in the draft was to give "very clear signals" to Iraq and to avoid the kind of "cat-and-mouse play" that plagued inspectors between 1991 and 1998, when they were withdrawn the last time.
"It helps us if Iraq is conscious that non-cooperation will entail reactions by the council," he added.
Earlier, the UN Security Council met with Blix, in a bid to bridge differences over the US draft resolution.
Ahead of the meeting in New York, officials in the capitals of some key council members ratcheted up the pressure at the start of what is expected to be make-or-break week in the council.
The White House, meanwhile, said the United Nations must now vote on a resolution. "The United Nations has debated this now long enough. The time has come for people to raise their hands and cast their votes," President George W. Bush’s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, told reporters.
In London, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair also said the time was close when a vote would have to be taken on the US draft, which would strengthen the inspectors’ powers.
Britain is alone among the four other permanent council members in giving wholehearted support to the US draft resolution.
Blair’s spokesman noted that the permanent members had been discussing the proposals since mid-September, and said that after addressing people’s concerns, "you come to a point where decisions have to be made." He added: "I think we are at or near that point."
But in Paris, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin challenged the bid by the United States to push through a resolution that would give it a green light for military action in Iraq.
"There can’t be collective action and unilateral action at the same time. A choice has to be made," he told reporters.
De Villepin warned Saturday that France, which had already distributed a text last week with extensive rewording of the US draft, would put forward its own proposal if no accord is reached. The two other permanent members, Russia and China, have sided with France.
