October 17, 2002
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Facing strong opposition from dozens of nations, the United States has backed down from its demand that a new U.N. resolution must authorize military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Instead, the United States is now floating a compromise that would give inspectors a chance to test Iraq's will to cooperate on the ground. The new compromise also drops tough wording explicitly threatening Iraq upfront, said the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Diplomats said France, which opposed the threat of force in the original U.S. draft proposal, was studying the new offer amid a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at solving an impasse among the Security Council powers on Iraq.
An open Security Council debate on Iraq, which started Wednesday and continued Thursday, made it clear that more than two dozen nations — including Iraq's closest neighbors and key U.S. allies — refused to endorse the Bush administration's demand for an authorization of military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspections.
They said Iraq must be given a chance to completely disarm without the imminent threat of military action.
Many U.N. members favor the two-resolution approach proposed by France and backed by Russia and China.
Under the French approach, the first resolution would toughen U.N. inspections and warn Iraq that it will face consequences, including the possible use of force, if it doesn't comply with inspections. The second would authorize action against Iraq if it failed to cooperate.
"Every possible effort should be made to avert war," Bangladesh's U.N. Ambassador Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told the council on Thursday.
In speech after speech, ambassadors from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America called Iraq's decision last month to allow U.N. inspectors to return an important first step — and said the council should send the inspectors back quickly and test Baghdad's commitment.
Many warned that a new war would add to the suffering of the Iraqi people, possibly engulf the Middle East in conflict, and have dire consequences on global stability and the world economy.
"This war is useless because its motives are not well-founded," Tunisia's U.N. Ambassador Noureddine Mejdoub said Wednesday. "It would unleash a chain of reactions in Iraq and in the region."
The council meeting was held at the behest of the Non-Aligned Movement, comprising 115 mainly developing countries that favor a peaceful solution in Iraq, and it was open to all 191 U.N. member states. Some 50 nations that aren't on the council took up the opportunity, and they were speaking ahead of the 15 council members who will wrap up the debate on Thursday.
South Africa's U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, whose country heads the Non-Aligned Movement, said he was delighted with the more than two dozen speeches on Wednesday.
"The overwhelming majority supported our position: Let the inspectors go back. Let Iraq live up to its responsibility," he said.
In his speech at the opening of the debate, Kumalo made clear the movement's opposition to the authorization of military force.
"We are here to voice our concerns regarding the possibility that the United Nations is now being asked to consider proposals that open up the possibility of a war against a member state," he declared.
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri was pleased at the opposition to military action and support for the return of inspectors in Wednesday's speeches. He said he expected to hear more of the same on Thursday.
Reiterating that Iraq would cooperate with the U.N. inspectors "in every possible way," al-Douri told the council that the United States was attempting "to hamper and delay the return of inspectors" to adopt a new resolution which would serve as "a pretext to cover aggression against Iraq."
Since the 1980s, Iraq has gone to war with two of its neighbors — Iran and Kuwait — but neither supported an immediate authorization to use force. Both urged the Iraqi government to strictly comply with all U.N. resolutions to avert war.
"Any use of force must be a last resort and within the United Nations framework and only after all other available means have been exhausted," said Kuwait's Ambassador Mohammad Abulhasan.
Several U.S. allies — the European Union , Canada, Australia and New Zealand — backed the U.S. view that after 11 years of failing to comply with U.N. resolutions, Iraq should be given a tough new mandate spelling out that inspectors must have unconditional and unrestricted access to all sites.
However, none of the allies called for a new resolution to include a green light for military action.
Denmark's U.N. Ambassador Ellen Margrethe Loj, speaking on behalf of the EU, said: "The government of Iraq should make no mistake about the fact that noncompliance with this inspection regime would have serious consequences."
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
