Britain, stung by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's suggestion that America may go it alone in attacking Iraq, set out disarmament conditions yesterday which it hopes the UN will embrace in a new resolution.
British opponents of war urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to seize on Rumsfeld's comment as a chance to bail out of a looming conflict which has deeply divided the nation. Last month, a third of the legislators in his Labor Party voted for a motion calling the case for war "unproven."
"Of course it is true that the United States could go alone, and of course this country should not take military action unless it is in our interest to do so," Blair told the House of Commons yesterday.
"What is at stake here is not whether the United States goes alone or not, it is whether the international community is prepared to back up the clear instruction it gave to Saddam Hussein with the necessary action," he said. "The best thing is to go flat-out for that second resolution."
In pursuit of that resolution, Britain proposed six tests for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to be included in a new UN Security Council resolution. Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien said Britain hoped for a vote today.
The Foreign Office said the six proposed tests included a public statement by the Iraqi president admitting that he has weapons of mass destruction and a pledge to disarm.
Saddam would also be required to allow scientists to be interviewed outside Iraq and account for drone aircraft the US says violate previous UN resolutions.
Blair has worked strenuously for a second resolution to authorize military force against Iraq, though he insists that Resolution 1441, adopted unanimously in November, provides the necessary legal authority.
He told the House of Commons that he would not accept a greatly extended deadline for Iraqi compliance, as proposed by the undecided six members of the Security Council.
"The idea that we can leave British and American troops down there for months on an indefinite time scale without insisting clearly that Saddam disarms, that would send not just a message out to Saddam but a message of weakness right across the world," Blair said. Britain has sent some 40,000 troops to the Gulf.
With France and Russia threatening to veto any resolution, Blair is aiming to get at least nine of the 15 votes on the Security Council. He has said Britain would regard that as sufficient in the event of any "unreasonable" veto.
In view of Blair's domestic difficulties, Rumsfeld was asked at a news conference Tuesday whether the US was prepared to attack without British help -- or with a reduced British role.
"What will ultimately be decided is unclear as to their role; that is to say, their role in the event a decision is made to use force," Rumsfeld said.
It was "an issue that the president will be addressing in the days ahead, one would assume," Rumsfeld added.
After his news conference, and urgent calls from British officials, Rumsfeld said he still expected British support.
"In the event that a decision to use force is made, we have every reason to believe there will be a significant military contribution from the United Kingdom," Rumsfeld said later in a statement.
"What he was clearly talking about was a theoretical possibility that British forces might not be involved," British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said yesterday. "He has every reason to believe that there will be a significant military contribution from the United Kingdom."
But Rumsfeld's comments were the top story in British newspapers yesterday, and Blair's opponents seized on the issue.
"The cat is out of the bag. They can do it without us and give Tony Blair the chance to get out of the hole if he wishes," said Graham Allen, one of a large bloc of lawmakers within Blair's Labour Party who oppose war.
"We hope now that he listens to what the people who gave him his job in the first instance, the people of this country, have been saying to him loud and clear, and that he pulls our troops out of there," said Glenda Jackson, the former actress who is now a Labor lawmaker.
A number of Labor lawmakers have indicated they consider a second resolution essential, and International Development Secretary Clare Short last weekend said she would resign from the Cabinet if Britain attacked without the second resolution.
Meanwhile, a UN force monitoring the Iraq-Kuwait border said yesterday it was temporarily removing some observers from remote parts of a demilitarized zone (DMZ) that US troops would have to cross in any invasion of Iraq.
"Some of the United Nations Military Observers stationed in remote and isolated Patrol and Observation Bases ... on both sides of the DMZ are ... being relocated temporarily to the Sector Headquarters," the UN Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission (UNIKOM) said.
The UN set up the zone in 1991 and created UNIKOM to patrol it, shortly after a US-led multinational coalition ended a seven-month Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
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