New UN resolution will set deadline for Iraq
Britain and the United States are to introduce a new UN resolution that paves the way for military action against Iraq, while still giving Saddam Hussein a final few weeks to co-operate fully with the arms inspectors.
The White House said President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a lengthy telephone conversation last night to discuss the wording of the resolution. It must be approved by a UN Security Council, which strongly opposes a rush to war.
Senior US and British officials said the short resolution, to be circulated later this week or early next week, would declare Iraq in “material breach” of its UN obligations to eliminate completely its weapons of mass destruction.
That would provide the legal justification for the use of military force, they said.
“It is time for the Security Council to consider a resolution that says Iraq is in material breach,” said Richard Grenell, spokesman for US Ambassador John Negroponte.
The Americans and British will then demand a decision on the resolution in two or three weeks, the diplomats said.
The deadline would put all parties on notice that war is looming unless Iraq demonstrates it is actively co-operating with inspections, the diplomats said.
President Bush has made it clear he will not be swayed by the peace protests that took place around the world last weekend – and the US and British diplomats stressed that time for Security Council action will be short.
“It will be a debate about a specific proposition and it will be on a timing that will concentrate people’s minds,” said British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock.
“You have heard ministers in Washington and London saying weeks not months, and that will be the framework for a debate.”
