US pushes tough Iraq proposals

The US has moved negotiations on its tough Iraq proposal to the UN, meeting with permanent members of the Security Council opposed to authorising force against Saddam Hussein before testing his willingness to co-operate on the ground.

France is among the sceptics and is pushing a competing draft proposal that leaves out any threat of consequences.

The French proposal says “any serious failure by Iraq to comply with its obligations” would lead to an immediate Security Council meeting to consider measures “to ensure full compliance”.

The follow-up meeting is considered a nod to the US-British position that military force would be necessary to achieve disarmament in the face of Iraqi noncompliance.

A copy of a French draft also calls for an overhaul of the UN inspections regime – a key US demand.

Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji has expressed support for the French proposal.

Unlike the US draft resolution, the French paper does not specifically detail how new inspections would work.

Instead, that is left up to the Security Council, following consultations with chief UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Mr Blix and Mr ElBaradei reached agreement with Iraq yesterday about a new mission to reassess Saddam’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq said it expected an advance party in Baghdad in two weeks.

But Mr Blix is unlikely to get council approval for the mission while the five permanent members of the Security Council – the US, Britain, France, Russia and China – are still divided over how to proceed.

“Our position is that he should get new instructions in the form of a resolution,” Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Washington.

Although the US draft resolution has not been made public, much of its content has been disclosed in recent days as Washington lobbies for support in Paris, Moscow and Beijing.

The US text gives the five permanent council members the right to send representatives on inspections and to receive intelligence reports from inspectors.

The previous UN inspections team disbanded at the end of 1998 amid allegations that members of the team were spying for the US.

Although the Iraqis are prepared to accept the return of inspectors, they have repeatedly raised concerns about spying, prompting Mr Blix to say last week that he would not share intelligence with foreign governments.

At the meeting yesterday at the UN, ambassadors from the permanent five discussed the US draft resolution’s so-called “or else” clause which warns Iraq to cooperate or face military action from member states.

The US draft resolution also vastly expands the inspectors powers by overriding a 1998 deal that limited access to eight presidential sites in Iraq encompassing 12-square miles.

The US plan would also allow inspectors to designate “no-fly” and “no-drive” zones around inspection sites while member states provide them with military support.

A British diplomat said the US and Britain were trying hard to avoid a situation in which France would feel compelled to push its proposal over the American one.

Asked whether he would consider the French approach, President George W Bush said yesterday:

“What I won’t accept is something that allows Saddam Hussein to continue to lie, deceive the world. I’m just not going to accept something that is weak. “