Security Council diplomatic tussle nears conclusion

France waged a diplomatic battle with the US yesterday to win the support of wavering nations in a UN vote unlikely to hold up US plans to invade Iraq for long.

In Moscow, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said yesterday that Russia would use its veto against the new draft UN resolution on Iraq if its wording was not changed significantly.

"Russia thinks that now there is no need for any new UN resolutions, and that is why Russia has openly declared that if the draft that has been submitted for consideration, and which contains unfulfillable ultimatum-type demands, will be put to vote, Russia will vote against this resolution," he said.

Pakistan also said it would be very difficult to support a war on Iraq.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, meanwhile, arrived in Angola at the start of a tour of three African nations with seats on the UN Security Council to urge them to oppose a US resolution setting a March 17 deadline for Iraq to disarm.

He traveled to Cameroon later in the day and then to Guinea. None of the three impoverished states has much at stake in the Iraq conflict but may be swayed by Western offers of aid, investment and trade.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday said he was within "striking distance" of rounding up the UN Security Council votes needed to pass the ultimatum.

But he said he would not be surprised by a French veto. Such a step by France, he warned, would "have a serious effect on bilateral relations, at least in the short term." Powell said he could not be sure where two other veto-bearing nations, Russia and China, stood on a vote that could take place as early today.

Criticism rose from several quarters, meanwhile.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean contended that a US-led war would give license to other nations who felt they needed to pre-emptively attack.

"It might be considered as a precedent for others to try to do the same thing," Chretien said on ABC's This Week. "Where do you stop? You know, if you can do that there, why not elsewhere?"

On NBC, Dean said, "What is to prevent China, some years down the road, from saying, `Look what the United States did in Iraq -- we're justified in going in and taking over Taiwan.'"

US administration officials said on Sunday that they were still short of lining up nine votes in favor of a resolution.

The officials said they remained hopeful that at least nine of the 15 Council members would eventually back the resolution.

"We don't have it in the bank," an administration official said, adding that the US would nonetheless press for a vote this week.

To be approved, a resolution must win at least nine votes on the 15-member Security Council and there must be no veto from any of the five permanent members: the US, Britain, France, Russia and China.

Iraqi authorities said that they had begun destroying six more prohibited al-Samoud 2 missiles yesterday, after scrapping more than 40 in recent days. US President George W. Bush has dismissed its concessions as a "charade."

An Iraqi daily owned by President Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, called on France, China and Russia to block the resolution and appealed for support from the three African members.

"The logic of justice, equity and law should rule in the Security Council, not the bloody and feverish wishes of the adventurers sitting in Washington," Babel said.