Blow for US as France against fresh UN mandate

FRANCE said last night it was opposed to a second UN resolution which could trigger war on Iraq and criticised America and Britain’s plans to use force against Saddam Hussein.

President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are insisting on military action without a fresh UN mandate in case it is blocked.

French President Jacques Chirac said he was against a second UN resolution, believing it would open the door to war and instability in the Middle East.

Yesterday French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said: “Do we need a second resolution? No. Are we going to oppose a second resolution? Yes, as are the Russians and many other countries.

“Some countries may think that with force in Iraq you are going to get the end of terrorism, the end of weapons proliferation in the world ... and like by magic you are going to make peace in the Middle East,” he said.

“We don’t agree. You cannot say ‘I want Saddam to disarm’ and at the same time when he’s disarming say ‘they are not doing what they should’.”

Though France has not said whether it will use its veto to block the resolution, Minister de Villepin added: “We have a chance through the inspections, peacefully to disarm Iraq. We must give inspections more time.”

Iraq began scrapping a second batch of banned missiles yesterday but America dismissed its efforts as a “game of deception”.

“Resolution 1441 called for a complete, total and immediate disarmament. It did not call for pieces of disarmament,” White House spokeswoman Mercy Viana said. “The President has always predicted that Iraq would destroy its al-Samoud missiles as part of their game of deception.”

With UN weapons inspectors looking on, Iraq destroyed six al-Samoud 2 missiles but warned it may suspend the destruction programme if the US indicates it will go to war anyway.

“As you can see, there is proactive co-operation from the Iraqi side,” Saddam Hussein’s scientific adviser, Lt Gen Amer al-Saadi, said.

But he cautioned that if the United States indicated it will go to war anyway, Iraq might stop destroying the missiles, which fly farther than the 93 miles allowed by the United Nations.

Britain and America’s military build-up, including over 200,000 troops, suffered a setback over the weekend when Turkey’s parliament voted narrowly not to let its territory be used for an invasion of northern Iraq, choosing to heed popular rejection

of a war rather than the promise of up to $30 billion in grants and loan guarantees.

Tayyip Erdogan, head of the ruling AKP party, held out little hope to Washington that the parliament might be asked to vote again soon, although he did not rule it out.