The US warned that it would give the UN a last chance on Iraq, insisting yesterday that the time had come to take action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Washington would give the world body less than two months to pass a fresh resolution to be unveiled next week and clearing the way for war, US President George W. Bush said after talks with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
PHOTO: AP
"Time is short. And this is the chance for the Security Council to show its relevance, and I believe the Security Council will show its relevance because Saddam Hussein has not disarmed," he said after the talks at his Texas ranch.
Bush -- who had called for Resolution 1441 in a Sept. 12 speech at the UN headquarters -- has repeatedly warned that he will strip Iraq of weapons by force if necessary if the world body fails to act.
Asked about UN weapons inspectors imposing a March 1 deadline for Baghdad to begin destroying banned missiles, Bush mocked that arsenal as just the "tip of the iceberg."
Saddam "has no intention of disarming, otherwise he would have done so," Bush said after he and Aznar held a four-way telephone conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
All four nations have taken a hard line against Iraq, and are coordinating an all-out diplomatic campaign to win the nine votes needed for the 15-member Council to approve the measure.
"We are working in order that the UN Security Council, in its role based on the UN charter, may work toward peace and security in the world through a new resolution that has the greatest support and majority support," Aznar said through an interpreter.
The Security Council would vote mid-March on the new UN resolution drafted by London and Washington, giving Saddam three weeks to disarm or face war, the British press reported.
The draft would declare Iraq in "material breach" of Resolution 1441 and would be presented at the UN on Monday, The Sunday Telegraph and The Observer reported, although this was not confirmed by British or US diplomats.
"The prime minister will expect that there could be a period of a few weeks that will pass before that resolution will be voted on in the UN," Blair's spokesman told reporters, saying only that the draft would emerge "early next week."
The push by Blair next week would be a "last push for peace," he added.
Veto-wielding permanent Security Council members China, France and Russia have opposed Washington's hawkish stance, but it was unclear whether they would veto a US-backed resolution.
A further stumbling block to the gathering momentum for military action was Turkey, which has insisted that Washington lay out a guaranteed package of financial aid to offset the economic impact of war in neighboring Iraq.
Ankara has made hosting US troops conditional on the aid package.
But after hard negotiations between Turkish and US diplomats last week, Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said that his Cabinet would meet today to ask parliament to permit US forces to use Turkish soil in an event of war on Iraq.
The use of Turkish territory will be key to any US invasion of Iraq from the north, thought to be the military campaign option favored by Washington.
"We're having continued good conversations with Turkey, and I anticipate they will continue for a little bit longer," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters in Texas.
The 114-nation Non-Aligned Movement was meanwhile expected to reject a US-led attack on Iraq and urge a resolution of the crisis through the UN, in a statement to be released at a summit opening in Kuala Lumpur today.
Meanwhile, US officials are trying to assess how Iraq would use chemical and biological weapons in the case of war, with experts saying targeting civilians in a nearby state may be deadlier than attacking invading troops.
Iraq denies possessing such weapons, and UN weapons inspectors have come up empty-handed in their search for them.
But US defense and intelligence officials and independent experts say they are confident Iraq not only has a hidden stockpile of chemical and biological agents but numerous ways to deliver them to their target.
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