US seeks backing on Iraq resolution

THE United States and Britain yesterday embarked on intense international negotiations in a bid to win support for a tough new UN resolution against Iraq.

Agreement was reached on the wording of a fresh ultimatum for Saddam Hussein, following several days of private talks between the two countries.

The proposed text sets out the Iraqi regime's violations of previous resolutions, and sets out both what it needs to do to comply and the consequences of failure.

But getting the backing of the other three permanent members of the UN Security Council looks set to be a tough task. Russian president Vladimir Putin dealt hopes of that a blow yesterday, saying he felt a new resolution was unnecessary.

The approval of Russia, as well as France and China, is vital as any one can veto a resolution as permanent members of the Security Council.

All three countries are believed to be keen to test the sincerity of Saddam's offer to allow UN weapons inspectors to return to the country to search for evidence of the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Launching a series of speeches across America to spread the Bush administration's anti-Iraq message, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday (OK) called Saddam a brutal dictator and said Iraq would be better off without him.

"He is a butcher, he tortures people, kills them personally," Mr Rumsfeld said in Atlanta, Georgia. "He has kept billions and billions and billions of dollars from going to the people of that country because he is determined to have weapons of mass destruction."

Mr Rumsfeld insisted that he hadn't come with "any particular message," saying he just wanted to take the debate on Iraq outside Washington.

Asked how the administration would assure that the next Iraqi government was not worse than Saddam, Mr Rumsfeld said: "In life, there are very few assurances."

"It has to be the interest of the world to see that his sons ... don't succeed him," as well as anyone else from Saddam's ruling clique, he said.

With the US Senate set to launch its debate next week on the resolution authorising a military strike against Iraq, Senator Edward Kennedy and other Democrats stepped up opposition to US President George W Bush's call for unilateral attack. One of the Senate's leading liberal voices, Senator Kennedy broke his silence on the issue in a speech saying war with Iraq could backfire by provoking the use of weapons of mass destruction, lead to a wider war in the Middle East, and weaken efforts to destroy the al-Qaida network blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

While Sen Kennedy said Iraq clearly poses a threat, he added: "The administration has not made a convincing case that we face such an imminent threat to our national security that a unilateral, pre-emptive American strike and an immediate war are necessary."