The US and Britain considered giving diplomacy more time yesterday in the face of resistance at the UN to their plans for war to disarm Iraq and vast weekend peace protests around the world.
Among more than 6 million people who marched in a wave of global protest not seen since the Vietnam War, some of the largest crowds were in countries whose leaders have echoed the hawkish stance taken by US President George W. Bush.
There was little sign that the demonstrations, capped by a rally in Sydney yesterday, had swayed pro-war leaders, who say Baghdad is hiding illegal weapons that pose a global threat.
Indeed NATO, its credibility rocked by a bitter internal row over Iraq, appeared close to a compromise that would allow it to prepare measures to protect Turkey in the event of a war.
But diplomatic splits persisted, complicating efforts by Washington and London to win UN backing for military action to disarm Iraq and oust President Saddam Hussein, who denies concealing banned weapons from UN inspectors.
France, which drew applause at the UN Security Council on Friday for its insistence the inspectors should get more time to scour Iraq, repeated that call yesterday, drawing criticism from Washington that said Paris was easing the pressure on Saddam.
Babel, newspaper of Saddam's eldest son Uday, said the US had suffered a decisive defeat.
"The reports by chief UN weapons inspectors to the Security Council and the following worldwide demonstrations have dealt a blow that America will never forget," it said.
But Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Washington was still working on winning support at the UN for a new resolution on Iraq.
A senior British diplomatic source said the US was prepared to spend longer trying to bring key UN Security Council members round after a showdown on Friday at which there appeared to be no majority for military action.
New Iraqi concessions
"If that takes another couple of weeks, that time will have to be found," the source said, stressing that there would have to be a defined deadline for the UN inspection process to produce results. "It's got to be clearly time-limited."
Diplomats said yesterday that Iraq was prepared to give the UN weapons inspectors the disarmament details they seek, but they feared, however, that Baghdad's last-minute change of heart has little chance of averting war.
The call by France, Russia and China for continued inspections and the mobilisation of pacifists around the world may have brought relief to Iraqi authorities, but they did not foil Washington's plans, the diplomats said.
The Iraqis "are in a mood for concessions", said one diplomat.
"If they can answer [the UN questions], they would," said the diplomat who asked not to be named, referring to UN requests for Iraq to come forward on its arms programmes since 1998, when inspections were halted for four years.
Outstanding points pertain mainly to alleged chemical and biological weapons that Iraq insists it has destroyed unilaterally. But the UN is still demanding proof of the destruction process.
Iraqi officials recently gave UN inspectors documents about Baghdad's weapons programmes.
A commission was formed to look for missing information and a list of 83 scientists who took part in the development of chemical arms was submitted to the inspectors.
The Iraqi concessions seem to be the result of strong diplomatic and military pressures by the international community.
Iraqi President "Saddam Hussein no longer has room for maneuver," said another diplomat.
But diplomats in Baghdad believe the Iraqi concessions have come too late and that the relatively upbeat reports on Friday by UN inspectors to the Security Council will not have a lasting effect.
Too late
"The countdown [to war] has slowed down, but it did not stop," one said.
The next step is expected to be made by Britain which is believed to be planning to propose in the next few days a fresh UN resolution requesting a prompt answer from Iraq on demands lingering since 1998.
The resolution is not expected to directly threaten military action against Saddam's regime, but would refer to Resolution 1441 which warns Iraq of "serious consequences" if it fails to cooperate with the UN.
"There would be an ultimatum with a very short term as well as precise and concrete questions," said a diplomat who follows ongoing discussions at the Security Council.
The new resolution is expected to be drafted before the next status report by chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei on Feb. 28, in order to ask Baghdad to provide information on unanswered questions.
For countries like France and Russia, it would be impossible to veto such a resolution that would only be a summary of obligations approved by the international community for Iraq to meet, said a Western diplomat.
With such brief delays, diplomats doubt strongly that Baghdad would be able to answer all UN requests and assert that any omission by Iraq could pave the way for military action.
"The only thing that could stop a massive attack is the departure of Saddam Hussein," said one diplomat.
He said the Bush administration of could not drop its plan to remove the Iraqi strongman from power. Neither criticism by most countries nor growing worldwide public protests will stop Bush.
"The point of no-return has been crossed," he said.
Germans see America as a threat
A majority of Germans think the US poses a bigger threat to world peace than Iraq or North Korea, a survey published yesterday showed.
The NFO-Infratest survey for Der Spiegel weekly came a day after about half a million people rallied against a US-led Iraq war in Berlin.
Asked from which country emanated the greatest danger to world peace, the US, Iraq or North Korea, 53 percent of the 1,000 people surveyed named the US, 28 percent Iraq and nine percent North Korea.
The poll also asked whether Germans owed the US a debt of gratitude for helping to rebuild Germany after World War II and for protecting its peace and freedom during the Cold War. Sixty-two percent answered "no" while 34 percent said this was still the case.
Iraq yesterday gloated over the global outpouring of opposition to the US threat of attack, saying anti-war demonstrations in dozens of countries signaled an Iraqi victory and ``the defeat and isolation of America.''
Iraq's tightly controlled news media gave prominent coverage to anti-war demonstrations staged around the world on Saturday. Iraqi television showed footage of millions marching in the world's cities -- under the logo ``International Day of Confronting the Aggression.''
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