U.N. OKd Force After Soviets Gave Up on Iraq

The historic U.N. Security Council decision authorizing the use of military force to blockade Iraq came after the Soviet Union abandoned hope that its former client could be persuaded by talk alone and decided to cast its lot with the West, officials involved in the negotiations said Saturday.

The vote in the wee hours of Saturday morning--a critical victory for the Bush Administration in its effort to win international backing in the crisis--climaxed three weeks of intensive negotiations in which Secretary of State James A. Baker III spoke to Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze by telephone as many as three times a day.

The turning point came late Friday afternoon after Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, his patience with Saddam Hussein at its limit, authorized Soviet diplomats to accede to a deal that omitted the word force and emphasized diplomacy, but left the military intentions unmistakable.

Hours later, after reaching separate agreements with nonaligned nations, U.S. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering emerged at 4:15 a.m. with the sought-after vote to sanction what could be the first battle shots fired in the conflict since Iraqi troops overran Kuwait.

“The diplomacy was exhaustive--and exhausting,” a weary U.S. diplomat said. It included a succession of post-midnight sessions as the United States sought to broker a deal making clear to Iraq that, as the crisis moved toward conflict, the lineup was all against one.

The extraordinary result sets in motion for the first time the collective security that was the dream of the United Nations’ architects. That dream lay dormant for more than 45 years--a victim of Cold War tensions only recently at an end.

At last, as National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft observed Saturday, the Security Council had operated “as it was designed to operate, to mobilize the civilized world community against aggression and against aggressors.”

“We’re really seeing the emergence of a new world order,” Scowcroft said.

Other U.S. officials conceded, however, that the historic moment came at a price: watered-down language that left unclear exactly what the Security Council had authorized and that may cause the United States to postpone its long-threatened use of naval force against defiant Iraqi oil tankers.

Amending a draft that had focused on “minimal force” to secure the blockade, the United States reluctantly agreed Friday afternoon to insert a clause satisfying a Soviet call for “maximum use of political and diplomatic measures” in advance of any resort to military means.

Then, to get around stubborn Chinese antipathy to any mention of the word force, the United States at the same time had to agree to a softer phrase: “measures commensurate to the specific circumstance.”

Finally, as Friday turned into Saturday, U.S. negotiators had to defer to Third World insistence that the resolution make clear that nations would not charge off alone but should consult the U.N. secretary general about their actions.

Several U.S. officials said that to avoid offending its allies, the United States will now almost certainly have to wait as many as several days before its naval forces challenge an Iraqi vessel in what could lead to shooting.

In their delight at turning the long-moribund United Nations into a powerful force, some diplomats even claimed an unintended blessing in the U.S. concessions. With U.N. approval now vaguely defined, one official said, the United States can claim latitude to take military steps that are more than “minimal.”

The frictions that emerged in the week of closed-door “consultations” on the eighth floor of a New York office building laid bare for the first time fractures among nations that had until last week presented a united front in opposition to the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait.

After responding with near-record speed to condemn the Iraqi invasion, to urge its withdrawal and to order economic sanctions against the aggressor, the Security Council simply stalled when it came time to consider how those U.N. sanctions should be enforced.

The United States pointed to clear violators: Iraqi oil tankers had ignored even warning shots aimed at bringing them to a halt. But in response, the Soviet negotiator held steadfastly that it would be premature to authorize military force until “diplomatic and political means have been exhausted.”

In private talks with the United States, France and Britain, the Chinese negotiator was making clear that China is “absolutely opposed” to the use of force. Confronted with a U.N. Charter that grants a veto to each of the five permanent members of the Security Council, some U.S. officials feared that the United Nations was doomed to yet another chapter of division and inaction.

What compounded the problem for Pickering was that the Bush Administration made clear that it wanted unanimity, or close to it, from the Security Council--no embarrassing “no” votes that could suggest that Iraq had an ally.

Thus, even as China made clear in private assurances to the United States that it would not veto the U.S. proposal, Pickering and his staff sought to turn the promised abstention into a “yes” vote, and late-night meetings produced little progress.

The crucial breakthrough came from Moscow, where Gorbachev, besieged by diplomatic overtures from the United States, began to soften in his position as world outrage mounted over the Iraqi invasion and the taking of hostages by Hussein.

The Soviets had been wary for a number of reasons about authorizing force, U.S. officials said. They noted the awkward presence in Moscow last week of a high Iraqi official, concern over the welfare of many Soviet citizens still in Iraq at the time, and, more importantly, the longstanding trade, intelligence, military and bureaucratic ties with Iraq and other countries in the Middle East.

But in the end, the officials said, Gorbachev clearly decided that an increasingly valuable relationship with the United States was more important for the Soviet Union than its fading influence in the Middle East.

In a Friday morning ultimatum to Hussein, he issued what diplomats throughout U.N. headquarters in New York immediately saw as a signal that the politically savvy Soviet leader had found a way to swing behind the U.S.-sponsored embargo enforcement resolution.

Gorbachev called on Hussein to immediately honor U.N. resolutions demanding that Iraqis leave Kuwait, restore the ousted government and assure the safety of foreigners. “Evading these resolutions will inevitably compel the Security Council to adopt appropriate additional measures,” Gorbachev said in the message.

Many U.N. diplomats saw this as a ploy to give the Soviets an excuse to support the enforcement resolution: There was little chance Hussein would heed the warning, but Gorbachev could say all diplomatic efforts had been tried. And Valentin V. Lozinsky, the Soviet representative to the United Nations, candidly acknowledged that that was Gorbachev’s intent.

Times staff writers Jim Mann and Maura Reynolds, in Washington, contributed to this report.