The Bush administration's plan for the future governance of Iraq has run into such stiff opposition at the UN Security Council that the administration has pulled back from seeking a quick vote endorsing the proposal and may shelve it altogether, administration officials said on Tuesday.
Two weeks after US President George W. Bush appealed at the UN for help in securing and reconstructing Iraq, administration officials said, Bush's top aides will decide soon whether it is worth the effort to get a UN endorsement of the current plan for Iraq.
Originally, the administration said that UN endorsement of American plans for the next phase of postwar Iraq would encourage other countries to contribute money or troops. Now the tone has shifted to one of living without such help, if necessary.
The new pessimism about winning UN support results from the cool reception accorded to the administration's most recent draft on Iraqi self-government, which was supposedly redrawn to take into account suggestions of Security Council members.
What little momentum there was behind the American proposal was deflated after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan disclosed his own reservations last week, much to the surprise of administration officials.
Annan, according to diplomats who have talked to him, essentially takes the view of the French that the violent attacks on Americans in Iraq would subside once an interim Iraqi government was established.
As things stood on Tuesday, administration officials said, the administration faced two unpalatable options. One was that it would not win the votes to pass a resolution to its liking; the other was that its victory margin would be so thin that approval would send a signal of a divided Security Council rather than one that wanted to help.
The principal point of contention between the US and Britain, on the one hand, and Annan, France and other council members on the other, is over the American intention to retain full control over Iraq during what could be a long period of writing a constitution, holding elections and restoring sovereignty.
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