Britain may abandon new resolution

BRITISH Foreign Secretary Jack Straw last night acknowledged they may have to abandon hopes of securing a new United Nations resolution before going to war with Iraq.

At a news conference at the Foreign Office, he repeatedly refused to say whether the draft resolution tabled by Britain, the US and Spain would be put to a vote in the Security Council.

Earlier, his Spanish counterpart Ana Palacio openly accepted that the resolution may be withdrawn, citing the threat by President Jacques Chirac to wield the French veto “whatever the circumstances”.

The acceptance that the resolution may have to be dropped will have come as a bitter blow to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who desperately needs a new UN mandate for war if he is to avoid a potentially catastrophic split in the Labour Party.

Earlier, at Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Blair had assured Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith that he still intended to put the resolution to a vote in the Security Council. He announced a series of six “benchmarks” against which Iraqi compliance with UN demands to disarm could be judged in a final attempt to win round the undecided council members.

But just five hours later, Mr Straw refused to guarantee that there would be a vote on a new resolution before military action was launched.

“What I guarantee is that we are working as hard as we possibly can to secure a second resolution,” he said.

“We are having to do so in circumstances in which one of the permanent members of the Security Council has said, whatever the circumstances, they will veto a resolution, so that is not easy.

“But that’s where we are at the moment that we have to make other decisions in the light of circumstances.”

He added that they were in a “very fast moving situation”.

Despite the threats by the French and Russians to block it, Britain and the US had been working to get the nine votes they needed to secure a resolution in the hope of putting pressure on Paris and Moscow not to use their vetoes.

However, it would appear they may have decided that they are better off going to war without a new resolution, rather than having seen their proposed draft actually rejected by the Security Council.

Ms Palacio, in Paris for talks with French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, said that if they went ahead with the vote and it was vetoed, it would have consequences for the whole UN system.

“Clearly, not putting it to a vote is a possibility which is being considered,” she said.

“We are considering it, above all in view of the already absolute and emphatic affirmation by France of a veto, because a veto is undoubtedly something which has consequences for the United Nations system.”

Mr Straw said that one way or the other, the process of trying to find a resolution would be brought to a conclusion by end of the week. In the Commons, Mr Blair made clear British troops would be fighting alongside the Americans, despite US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s suggestion that the US could “go it alone” if the British government failed to get parliamentary approval for military action.

“The reason why I believe it is important that we hold firm to the course we have set out is because what is at stake here isn’t whether the US 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,” Mr Blair said.

“That is why I am determined we hold firm to the course we have set out.”