Bush prepared to delay vote

President Bush is prepared to delay a UN vote on an Iraqi war resolution until next week if it will help Prime Minister Tony Blair get out of a jam at home, the White House said today.

A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president decided a few extra days of diplomacy might help Mr Blair, who is facing stiff domestic opposition to war while he tries to forge a compromise.

“It may conclude tomorrow. It may continue into next week,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

As the vote was delayed, White House officials scrambled to organise an overseas trip for Bush, two senior White House officials said.

They declined to say whether the president might go, although a Gulf trip to inspect the US war machine on the Iraqi border is a distinct possibility.

Bush phoned world leaders today and met Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Ireland has provided landing facilities for American military aircraft for 40 years, but Ahern said in January that Ireland would be in “a new position” if the United States took military action in Iraq without a specific mandate from the UN Security Council.

But Ahern strongly backed Bush today, saying, “For the United Nations to be respected, it must be united in purpose as well as in name.”

Bush thanked Ireland for its support last fall as a Security Council member for a resolution demanding the Iraq disarm.

“We appreciate Ireland’s support for seeing the just demands of the world are enforced,” Bush said.

He offered no comments on the state of negotiations at the United Nations.

Bush’s chief spokesman has said for days that the vote would be held this week.

The US-British backed resolution under consideration sets a Monday deadline for Iraq to disarm.

Pushing back the deadline for a vote likely means that deadline would be delayed as well.

“The president is willing to go the extra mile for a diplomacy,” Fleischer said. “There is a limit on how far he’s willing to do.”

He said Bush was still committed to staging a UN vote.

American officials had said earlier that France is sending exactly the wrong message to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein by threatening to veto a United Nations resolution that would order him to disarm immediately or face war.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Wednesday that the stand of French President Jacques Chirac is making it less likely Iraq can be disarmed peacefully and the White House suggested for the first time that voting against the resolution in the Security Council could damage a country’s relationship with the US.

France, along with Russia, has threatened to veto the resolution should it receive the nine Security Council votes necessary for approval.

“Unfortunately, President Chirac has said that no matter what, they’re going to veto the resolution,”

Boucher said. ”I suppose that factor needs to be taken into account by all those who are proceeding here.

“But, frankly, saying that he’ll veto the resolution no matter what sends precisely the wrong signal to Baghdad, precisely the wrong signal for those who want peaceful disarmament,” Boucher said.

Prospects for passage of a new Security Council resolution backing the use of force were uncertain today even as the United States heads for a showdown at the United Nations by the end of the week.

However, the US diplomatic campaign appeared to be making headway with three African countries.