US to consider Iraq resolution rethink
The United States says it will consider suggested changes to its draft United Nations Security Council resolution, criticised for not giving the world body a larger role in rebuilding post-war Iraq.
The US envoy said no further consultations were planned for now after yesterday’s meeting of the 15-member security council ended with little progress on bridging divisions over how and when to hand over power to the Iraqis.
“We’ve reached a time to take a brief pause for everybody to digest what had been said and see how it affected our thinking,” said John Negroponte, who is also the president of the council for October and schedules council meetings.
He indicated the comments and suggestions by other council members during the meeting would be conveyed to Washington.
When asked by reporters whether the survival of the draft was at stake, he said: “It has no implications along the lines you are suggesting, simply a pause to evaluate where we stand with respect to the draft.”
Diplomats said the council spent yesterday’s session questioning the United States over the revised resolution – presented last week – that seeks to create a broad multinational force to secure Iraq. It would also give the United Nations a limited role in the transfer of power to the Iraqis after a popular government is elected in Baghdad.
Negroponte had said earlier he wanted a new resolution approved before an international donors conference for Iraq in Madrid on October 23 and 24.
The United States had originally presented the draft in August and brought back the revised version last week.
A French diplomat said that the United States did not appear ready to incorporate changes sought by France and Germany, two leading opponents of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week ruled out a UN political role as long as American and British forces were running Iraq. He made his views known to the council on Thursday and a senior UN official explained his position to reporters the next day.
Annan wants the United States to hand over sovereignty within five months to an Iraqi provisional government, which could then take the two years or more the United Nations has found necessary to create a viable constitution and organise elections, the UN official said.
Under a provisional government, Annan said extremist attacks would hopefully diminish, other countries would be more likely to contribute troops and money and the United Nations, if asked, could help oversee the political transition to a democracy.
Annan has pulled out most of the UN staff in Iraq after two bombings at their headquarters in Baghdad in a month that killed 22 people and injured more than 150 others.
The United States wants its hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council to adopt a constitution, hopefully within six months, then hold elections six months after that. Power would be relinquished only after an elected government was installed, according to the US plan.
The US draft resolution on Iraq asks both the United Nations and the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority to help the Governing Council adopt a constitution, hold elections and train civil servants. It endorses a step-by-step transfer of authority to an Iraqi interim administration but sets no timetable.
