"Don't look beyond March"
The United States will attack Iraq when its troops are ready, regardless of the Security Council vote, reports Khaled Dawoud from Washington
Strong opposition at the United Nations Security Council to United States and British plans to pass a draft resolution that would trigger war against Iraq has forced the two countries to delay seeking a vote, US officials have said. After the US, Britain and Spain tabled their draft resolution last week, declaring 17 March the final deadline for Iraq to disarm fully, officials from the three countries said they expected a vote on Monday or Tuesday.
However, threats by France and Russia to use their veto power to kill the draft and strong opposition from other members of the Security Council for the immediate use of force against Iraq, obliged the American administration to delay the vote until Thursday or Friday. Some State Department officials said they would not even rule out postponing the vote until early next week if there was hope that the US could win enough support for the draft resolution.
The US needs at least nine votes, and no vetoes from the other four permanent members of the Security Council for the draft to pass. But after French President Jacques Chirac openly stated that Paris would vote "no" to the US draft resolution, US officials said that they were now aiming to get the nine votes. That would show, US officials believe, that the majority of the Security Council members were behind the US, and that France -- or Russia, if it uses its veto power -- stood alone against the majority of Security Council members. The United States has the support of Britain, Spain and Bulgaria, and has to win five other votes for the resolution to pass.
In this context, pictures of President George Bush in the American papers this week did not depict him delivering speeches to troops and loyalists, or receiving foreign dignitaries. Rather, he was speaking on the phone, sometimes alone, at times with his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, close at hand, clearly anxious. On Monday alone, Bush spoke with eight world leaders. Colin Powell has also been criticised for not travelling abroad to press for US interests, depending instead on telephone diplomacy. He has been making countless phone calls to world leaders to convince them that the United States had no option but to attack Iraq to force it to disarm.
US officials were not only calling leaders of the six non-permanent Security Council members, known in the US media as the Undecided Six or U-6 (Guinea, Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico and Pakistan), but also leaders of other countries that could influence those six and make them vote in favour of the US draft. The six countries proposed, after a meeting at the Security Council on Tuesday, giving Iraq a 45- day reprieve after passing the draft resolution. The Bush administration said it was willing to listen but wants a far shorter deadline. "That's a non-starter," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
"The United Kingdom is in a negotiation and it's prepared to look at timelines and tests together," Britain's UN Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said. "But I am pretty sure we're talking about action in March. Don't look beyond March," he added.
France and Russia were no less enthusiastic about their own telephone diplomacy with the U-6, with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin even carrying out a quick tour of the three African country members of the Security Council on Monday. One American official was quoted by the New York Times as saying that he feared that, "a bidding war could break out" over the votes of the six countries. After Powell went as far as openly warning France that its opposition to the draft resolution would negatively affect relations between the two countries, the amount of pressure exerted by Washington on the U-6 could be even greater, observers noted.
US officials maintained, however, that they were exerting this additional diplomatic effort mainly in support of America's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, adding that they did not even think a second resolution was necessary. These officials recognise the strong opposition Blair is facing at home, and the fact that he would be in a very difficult position if he did not get a second Security Council resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq.
But it is not only Blair who is facing opposition at home. A New York Times/ CBS poll released on Tuesday revealed that 52 per cent of Americans questioned said they would also prefer UN backing for any possible action against Iraq. Former US president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Jimmy Carter, also wrote a sound editorial in the New York Times on Sunday explaining why Bush's war against Iraq failed to meet any standards of a "just war". He warned that the expected war would increase instability in the Middle East region and undermine the United States' position in the world. The influential paper also publicly expressed, in an editorial, its opposition to rushing to war, stating that the US president has failed to make a convincing case to the American people that Iraq represents an imminent threat.
But President Bush, his hawkish Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the now pro-war Powell, all seemed undeterred. In his recent statements, including a rare news conference late last week, Bush insisted that he would not wait for UN permission to protect the security of the American people, and reiterated the assumption that he could not take the risk of waiting till Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), "reach the hands of terrorist organisations like Al-Qa'eda".
Many observers here believe that all the diplomatic haggling taking place at the Security Council in New York was not delaying US war plans, and preparations for a post-Saddam Iraq. US officials are still hoping to win Turkey's approval for the deployment of 62,000 troops after the formation of a new cabinet headed by the charismatic leader of the Justice and Development Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The hope is that the new premier would make a second attempt to win the approval of the Turkish parliament to deploy US troops after the first attempt failed narrowly two weeks ago. Thus, a two- to three-week delay would give the United States ample time to position its troops in Turkey and send more to the region.
Also, on Tuesday, Pentagon officials announced that the US Air Force tested a new 21,000-pound bomb. This could be used in Iraq against critical targets underground, where it is alleged that weapons of mass destruction are being hidden, or where President Hussein is personally seeking cover. The so-called Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) has already been given the nickname: Mother Of All Bombs. The Air Force released a video of the test on Tuesday, showing a huge cloud similar to that caused by nuclear bombs. Pentagon officials said they hoped that releasing the video would place additional pressure on the Iraqi military.
The new bomb is an upgrade of an already devastating weapon -- "the daisy cutter" -- used by the Americans to target caves in Afghanistan where members of Al-Qa'eda and the Taliban were believed to be hiding.
A senior US defence official also announced on Tuesday that the US planned to use regular Iraqi army to help rebuild postwar Iraq. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters that the US is hiring Iraqis living in the United States, Britain and elsewhere in Europe to help coordinate reconstruction and humanitarian efforts after the war.
US officials administering postwar Iraq also intend to repair any damage that may be inflicted by the current Iraqi government to the country's oil fields and pipelines, the official said.
"But I don't intend to be the guy that sells Iraqi oil. The oil belongs to the Iraqi people," the official added. He said that, over time, some of the revenue from the future sale of Iraqi oil would go to the reconstruction of Iraq, to build schools, hospitals, power facilities and improve roads.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the United States has already started granting contracts that could be worth up to $900 million to selected US companies to take part in Iraq's reconstruction. These companies have accepted the offer, hoping that this would give them an advantage in bidding for more lucrative contracts in Iraq's future oil industry.
