UNITED NATIONS, 14 March 2003 — The United States said yesterday it might abandon its search for a UN Security Council majority to authorize a looming invasion of Iraq, as its diplomatic efforts suffered new setbacks.
Still lacking Security Council support for a resolution that would give Iraq a few more days to satisfy its disarmament demands, the White House said diplomatic efforts could spill over into next week.
But Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington could also pull the resolution, cosponsored by Britain and Spain, and wage war under the authority of previous UN votes.
“The options remain, go for a vote and see what members say or not go for a vote,” Powell told a US congressional committee. “But...all the options that you can imagine are before us and (we will) be examining them today, tomorrow and into the weekend.”
With over 250,000 American and British troops poised to invade Iraq, President George W. Bush maintains he will launch a war without UN backing if necessary. He added to the US firepower yesterday, sending B-2 stealth bombers to the region. Britain also said it is sending a further 850 troops to the Gulf.
But Bush’s main ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is desperate for a UN resolution that could shore up his crumbling political base in the face of strong anti-war sentiment in his Labour Party and in the country.
Britain offered a new concession by offering to drop a demand for President Saddam Hussein to appear on Iraqi television and own up to past illegal weapons programs.
Britain, Council diplomats said, also was willing to give a substantial extension to the ultimatum in the current resolution giving Saddam until March 17 to show he was ready to disarm. But the United States objected to anything more than a “very, very” modest extension.
France repeated its opposition to giving Saddam any ultimatums and said it was prepared to kill any such resolution by using its veto. Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said: “It’s not a question of giving Iraq a few more days before committing to the use of force. It’s about making resolute progress toward peaceful disarmament, as mapped out by inspections that offer a credible alternative to war.”
But in later comments, de Villepin sounded a more conciliatory note, saying France wanted to find a consensus in the Security Council and was working to defuse the bitter confrontation.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also said his country, which is under heavy US pressure to abstain, would veto any resolution paving the way to war, even indirectly.
At the United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan called in 13 of the 15 ambassadors of Security Council members for brief meetings ahead of new consultations later in the day. He appealed to members to heal their rifts.
In Baghdad, a diplomatic source said Iraq would send a report on its disposal of VX nerve agent to United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix today and another report on anthrax a few days later.
The United States and Britain say Iraq has failed to account for hundreds of tons of the deadly agents which they believe it produced in the 1980s. Iraq said it destroyed all its stocks in 1992 but has so far failed to provide documents or witnesses.
A UN weapons inspector died in Iraq yesterday after his car collided with a truck as he was returning from an inspection mission south of Baghdad, the United Nations and an Iraqi source said.
Hiro Ueki, a spokesman for the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission in Baghdad, confirmed the incident. “It was a genuine car accident,” Ueki said, but he gave no details. A UN official in New York said there appeared to be “nothing suspicious” about the accident, which happened in the early afternoon.
An Iraqi source said the unnamed inspector, part of a chemical weapons team, was heading for the Iraqi capital in a convoy of four cars from Numaniyah after a visit to a tomato canning factory. The car overturned after the collision and fell into a swamp by the side of the road. Iraqi guides traveling with the team helped pull two inspectors out of their car.
A UN force monitoring the Iraq-Kuwait border said it had pulled all its staff out of the Iraqi side of a demilitarized zone (DMZ) that US troops would have to cross in any invasion. “Everyone has been removed from the Iraqi side,” said UN mission spokesman Daljeet Bagga. “It’s just a precautionary step. It’s very quiet and calm, but we don’t want to be caught unprepared.”
