Britain, U.S. Declare Iraq Missed Chance

Britain, backed by the United States and Spain, presented the U.N. Security Council with a resolution Monday declaring that Iraq “has failed to take the final opportunity” to disarm and implying that the price of its defiance was immediate military action.

British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said the one-page resolution paves the way for U.S.-led military action if Iraq does not disarm “within two weeks or so.”

But its vague wording also keeps the door open for an eleventh-hour compromise with members of the Security Council that insist war must be a last resort. France, Russia and Germany, with China’s support, said they would block any premature use of force and submitted a proposal to “contain” Iraq through inspections. France, Russia and China each have the power to veto Security Council resolutions.

The new resolution was introduced as Saddam Hussein indicated in an interview with CBS that he would resist demands by weapons inspectors to begin destroying missiles that have been found to exceed a flight limit imposed by the United Nations. And with U.S. forces massing on Iraq’s southern border, the Turkish parliament prepared to take up a request today to allow thousands of U.S. troops to use Turkey to open up a second front against Hussein’s forces in northern Iraq.

President Bush reiterated his challenge to the United Nations to confront a decade of Iraqi defiance.

“Here’s the moment for the Security Council and the United Nations

The next several weeks of diplomacy will help determine not only whether Iraq can be disarmed without a war but also how Washington will engage the world body on future foreign policy issues. However, in the next few days, the focus will be on what the draft says -- and doesn’t say.

The U.S. had been pushing a draft that clearly authorized military action. But during weekend deliberations, a vaguer version backed by the British won out. In the resolution presented Monday, stern language declaring that Iraq is in “further material breach” and will face “serious consequences” appears in the preamble -- not in the main part of the resolution, which prescribes action. The operative section says only that “Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded it in resolution 1441,” which the Security Council approved unanimously in November.

By shying away from the explicit authorization of force, the resolution has a better chance of winning the support of council members reluctant to back military action outright, diplomats say. But it also provides a legal basis for war by referring back to resolution 1441’s promise of “serious consequences” in the event of Iraq’s failure to comply -- which is understood to mean military force.

“It’s very cleverly done,” said a council diplomat. “Everyone can agree in some way that Iraq has missed its chance. What the legal effect of that statement may be is up for grabs. It doesn’t say to do anything. It’s descriptive. That’s a degree of ambiguity some people may need.”

The careful language reveals how delicate the U.S. and British position is. Currently, they have the support only of Spain and Bulgaria. They need the votes of at least five more members -- and no vetoes from France, Russia and China -- to pass their resolution. Still on the fence are three African countries, as well as Chile, Mexico and Pakistan. Several of the nonpermanent council members are considering abstaining as a group until the body reaches a consensus.

In an attempt to counter the resolution, France distributed a proposal outlining ways to strengthen inspections through a continued military presence in the region and a regular schedule of reports. The memo is meant not as a competing resolution but as a position paper to give resisting council members something to rally around, diplomats said. In the end, it might offer elements that could be melded with Monday’s draft as a compromise, said diplomats.

In Berlin, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said at a joint news conference that they would vote against the new resolution as long as there was a way to rid Iraq of its weapons without war.

“Of course, we want Iraq to be disarmed, because Iraq represents a danger for the region and maybe for the world,” said Chirac. “But we consider that disarmament should be done in a peaceful way because

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte, expressed little patience with the French-German counterproposal.

“As far as we’re concerned, this is much more process than substance,” he said. “We don’t see it as contributing to the disarmament of Iraq, and we view that paper with deep skepticism.”

Canada is spearheading an effort to find a compromise between the two sides that would combine clear tests for Iraq with short deadlines. And chief weapons inspector Hans Blix is working to prioritize a list of dozens of unresolved disarmament issues to frame a plan of action. Canada has suggested that Iraq be required to answer inspectors’ top questions within weeks -- or face the consequences.

“We think both sides have a point,” said Canadian Ambassador Paul Heinbecker, who has been working quietly to bridge the deep rift between the five permanent Security Council members.

“An open-ended inspection process takes the pressure off Iraq to act, while a truncated process leaves people in doubt that the inspectors have had a chance,” he said. “The only way we are going to come together is to agree on an end date.”

The momentum of the U.S.-led military buildup combined with weather restrictions means that the U.S. wants that end date to come soon. By mid-April, the desert sun makes it difficult for soldiers to move in full protective gear. U.S. officials said Monday that the administration now holds out “very little hope” for a diplomatic agreement that would avoid war, and would push for a quick Security Council vote. Bush may outline a general timetable in a speech he is scheduled to give Wednesday at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

Hussein might make the U.S. argument easier by refusing to meet the first challenge presented by Blix -- to begin the destruction by Saturday of a missile system that inspectors concluded can exceed the U.N.-mandated limit of 93 miles.

The Iraqi president denied in the CBS interview that any of his most advanced Al-Samoud 2 missiles are in violation of U.N. restrictions. Even if Iraq agrees to destroy the missiles, U.S. officials are already downplaying the possible move as “a decoy” for full disarmament, and argue that Iraq has many other weapons of mass destruction to account for.

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Times staff writers Robin Wright in Washington and Sebastian Rotella in Paris contributed to this report.