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U.S. Drops 'Force' Demand For New Resolution on Iraq

Boucher

UNITED NATIONS, October 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United States said Friday, October 18, it dropped a key demand that any new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq contains an automatic authorization of the use of force if Baghdad does not disarm.

However, the United States still insists that it could act alone against Iraq without a U.N. resolution if the United Nations does not take action against President Saddam Hussein, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The new U.S. position would permit the Council to consider authorizing the use of force if chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix determined that Iraq was not complying with the terms of U.N. resolutions, U.S. officials said.

The Security Council session broke for the weekend late Friday and action on the U.S. proposal was seen unlikely until next week.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Blix should report back to the Security Council which should then "deal with the problem."

"Our preference is for the Security Council to take action if Iraq doesn't comply," he told reporters.

"If they deal effectively with the problem with the collective action, with military action or something, so much the better," Boucher said.

"If they don't, as we've stated in the congressional resolution and elsewhere, the President still has his authority. We're going to deal with the problem one way or the other," he said.

The probable resolution to be tabled by the United States would enable arms inspectors to assess whether Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction, backed by only an implicit threat of force, diplomats said.

It would set in place a two-stage process, reconvening the Security Council before any military attack on Iraq took place, they added.

One of two key paragraphs in the mooted draft stipulates that the Council would convene immediately if it received a report from Blix or International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohammed el-Baradei "to consider the situation and in order to restore international peace and security."

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, for his part, said the Security Council could take measures against Iraq "including the use of force" if arms inspectors found it was hindering its efforts to disarm it.

If U.N.-mandated weapons inspectors in Iraq encountered difficulties in carrying out their mission, the U.N. Security Council "will examine the issue again and decide whether new, stricter measures, possibly including the use of force, should be taken," Ivanov told a press conference.

However, Ivanov stressed that the sole objective of a U.N. resolution on Iraq currently under discussion at the world body's headquarters in New York should be the rapid return of weapons inspectors to Baghdad and their ability to work effectively.

"The resolution must pursue one goal, that being to strengthen the mandate of the U.N. inspectors in Iraq," he said, speaking at an question-and-answer session organized jointly by the Foreign Ministry and the Interfax news agency.

Moreover the use of force to secure Iraq's disarmament should be envisaged only in the event that the weapons inspection teams encountered difficulties, he stressed.

"If inspectors return to Iraq and face some difficulties during the mission, they would have to report them," Ivanov said.

The United States and Britain had proposed a resolution that would automatically authorize "all necessary means" to force Iraqi compliance if President Saddam Hussein does not cooperate with U.N. inspectors.

But, faced with intense French opposition, Washington and London began this month to look for compromise proposals.

Secretary of State Colin Powell indicated Thursday, October 17, that a compromise had been reached.

But Boucher's remarks were the clearest public U.S. statement yet that the United States would back away from its initial demands.

Despite the compromise, U.N. diplomats said key members of the Security Council still have differences to iron out before they can adopt a resolution that U.S. officials hope to present early next week.

Obstacles to consensus among the five veto-wielding permanent council members -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- are proposed changes to the mandate of Blix's arms inspection teams, they said.

But United States appeared late Friday to have dropped its most controversial proposal, to allow any permanent council member to take part in any inspection team it chose, they said.

Blix is known to oppose the idea and has been careful to put together a team that Iraq cannot accuse of containing spies, as it did with members of the former inspection regime.