UNITED NATIONS/BAGHDAD, 12 March 2003 — The United States yesterday said it is ready to go to war against Iraq without Britain, if necessary, and called for a UN vote on a new resolution.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a press briefing that the United States had alternative plans if Britain decides not to take part in any military action to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
“To the extent they (Britain) are not able to participate, there are works around, and they would not be involved,” Rumsfeld said.
President George W. Bush, who has over 300,000 troops poised to invade Iraq to remove the Saddam regime and destroy his banned weapons programs, is anxious to resolve the UN standoff quickly.
Bush has pledged to go to war with or without UN backing, but the United States is clearly reluctant to abandon efforts to win a Security Council resolution that would give its military operations added legitimacy under international law.
Even if France and Russia carried through their threat to veto such a resolution, it could provide some much-needed political cover for loyal US allies, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. They both face public opinion that is overwhelmingly hostile to war without UN approval.
The United States and Britain so far have failed to muster more than four of the nine votes needed for passage of a resolution setting a March 17 deadline for Iraq to satisfy them that it is fully disarming or face attack.
However White House spokesman Ari Fleischer declared: “The vote will take place this week...There’s room for a little more diplomacy here but not much room and not much time.”
Bush called the president of Security Council member Angola, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, kicking off a hectic day of telephone diplomacy. Angola is one of six Security Council members still uncommitted, the others being Chile, Mexico, Pakistan, Guinea and Cameroon.
Five nations, three of which have veto power, are definitely against the resolution: Russia, France, China, Germany and Syria. Those in favor are the United States, Britain, Spain and Bulgaria.
Blair, facing the worst crisis of his leadership, indicated that he might be willing to extend the March 17 ultimatum a little but British officials said they would not let the issue drag out beyond the end of March.
Britain is also looking at ways of setting Iraq specific goals or tests it must satisfy to avoid being attacked in an effort to round up more support.
“Don’t look beyond March,” Britain’s UN ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said.
Blair criticized France and Russia for threatening to use their veto, saying they were encouraging Saddam to stand firm and not give in to UN demands. “My concern is if countries talk about using a veto in all sets of circumstances, the message that sends to Saddam is: You’re off the hook,” Blair told reporters in London.
Cameroon’s UN ambassador said the Security Council’s six undecided nations had proposed a 45-day deadline for Baghdad. But Fleischer dismissed even a month-long extension as a non-starter.
The United States also said it plans to use Iraq’s regular army to help rebuild a postwar Iraq and is recruiting and hiring Iraqis living in America and Europe to make key decisions in the reconstruction process.
In the potential war zone itself, Iraq mined its northern oil fields of Kirkuk and dug a huge oil-filled trench around the city, according to reports from travelers arriving in Iraq’s Kurdish free zone. Their reports could not be independently confirmed.
UN arms inspectors yesterday suspended U-2 reconnaissance flights over Iraq for safety reasons after Baghdad complained two aircraft flying simultaneously was a hostile action. A senior Iraqi official said the United Nations had admitted having the second aircraft in the air was a “mistake” and denied Iraq had threatened the planes.
But a US official said Iraq “informed us when the planes were in the air that only one was acceptable and the second would be viewed as ‘hostile.’”
Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission, who announced the United Nations had suspended the flights, said he could not confirm that inspectors conceded any error as the number of UN flights were unrestricted.
Workers began destroying more Al-Samoud 2 missiles, meaning almost half the Iraqi arsenal of the prohibited rockets have now been broken up. Baghdad has denied accusations it is hiding weapons of mass destruction and says it is cooperating with UN inspectors.
