ROME, November 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday, November 7, a revised U.S. draft resolution on Iraq still needed work to remove "ambiguities" over the possible U.S. use of force.

"We are in the final phase of negotiations. There have been many improvements and we are probably near the end," Chirac was quoted by his spokeswoman as saying during a meeting in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

But he added: "A few ambiguities remain, a final adjustment would be useful," Catherine Colonna said, quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Moscow and Paris remain unconvinced that the revised draft has removed "hidden triggers" allowing a military strike against Baghdad without prior and complete consultation within the U.N. Security Council, said AFP.

"Things must be as clear as possible on the question of the use of force," Chirac was quoted by AFP as saying.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin also said Thursday that many clarifications were still needed about the draft.

"We continue to ask for clarifications, notably on clauses automatically authorizing the use of force," the foreign minister told Europe 1 radio.

"We believe this text can still be improved. We want things to be as clear as possible," he added.

In what was probably the most important change, the draft put the disputed words "Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations" into a new context.

France and Russia said the words could be construed as saying the February 1991 ceasefire which ended the last Gulf War no longer holds, and the United States was therefore free to attack Iraq, said AFP.

Chirac told Russian President Vladimir Putin he hoped the resolution would be adopted unanimously, but said all risk of the automatic use of force must be excluded, AFP reported.

Britain, a co-sponsor of the new draft and Washington's closest ally in rallying against Iraq, cast doubt on whether the Security Council would come to agreement over the new terms for resuming U.N. inspection of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction by Friday, November 8.

"The Prime Minister recognized that we weren't quite there yet in terms of the U.N. resolution and he was still not sure whether we will get there today, tomorrow or on Monday," his spokesman said.

President George W. Bush and top diplomats said they were confident their text would meet with approval and that a vote on the resolution could come by the end of the week.

"We want a vote tomorrow [Friday]. We have made that perfectly clear, and we are hoping that the Council understands that needs to happen tomorrow," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte as debate resumed at U.N. headquarters in New York.

London and Washington have wrangled to convince fellow permanent Security Council members to back a tough resolution on Iraq, which they accuse of allegedly harboring and developing a nuclear, biological and chemical weapons arsenals.

Debate, which resumed again Thursday, has raged for eight weeks since Iraqi officials agreed to accept the unconditional return of U.N. arms inspectors, who left the country in December 1998 on the eve of U.S. and British air strikes.

China, the remaining permanent member, on Thursday was still silent on whether it would back the measure, but said that the draft better addressed the concerns of other countries.

All five Security Council members have veto power. A resolution in the 15-member Council needs at least nine votes to pass, as well.

Syria, a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, said it wanted time to study the draft and that a vote should not take place before next week, said AFP.

"We want to discuss this issue during a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo Sunday," state news agency SANA quoted Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara as saying in a telephone conversation with his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin.

For its part, Baghdad said the draft was one "to announce war" and that the United States was bent on waging that war regardless of the U.N. position.

In Baghdad, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz accused the United States of seeking to carve up the Middle East.

"The United States has declared Iraq as a target, but in reality all the region is threatened with being broken up into several marginal states," Aziz said, quoted by AFP.

Washington wants to "plunge the region again into the colonial system of long ago," he added.

Aziz praised opposition to U.S. plans to strike Iraq, saying "time is playing in favor of these forces, and demonstrators are expressing themselves more and more in the capitals of the world, notably in the United States, and rejecting this aggression."

And Iraq's permanent delegate to the Arab League, Mohssen Khalil, denounced Thursday the U.S. draft resolution on Iraq as "a draft to announce war" against Baghdad.

He was speaking to reporters after delivering a message to Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.

"The American administration announced it will take steps against Iraq, either inside the framework of the U.N. Security Council, or outside it," he said, quoted by AFP.

"There is no need to adopt a new Security Council resolution, since Iraq announced it was ready to grant all facilities to the inspectors to complete their mission," he added.

Khalil said he had informed Mussa that his country would work for a return of the inspectors as "early as possible."

A leading Baghdad daily also urged Russia and France to oppose the U.S. notorious darft.

"The U.S. draft is full of hatred and concealed aggressiveness, it says what we should do and what we should give, and, in any case, threatens the use of force," said Babel.

"The smell from the contents of the draft says that whatever we have given and whatever we will give," in terms of disarmament, "the result will remain the same, an aggression," the paper added.

"A preliminary examination of this draft shows that it is bound to fail, that it is an aggressive draft, its primary objective is to cancel out our efforts, our cooperation and our suffering over the past 11 years.