British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted this morning that hopes for a second UN resolution on Iraq have faded, making war more likely, according to his Tory counterpart.
"The prime minister today told me that . . . that second resolution is now probably less likely than at any time before," Conservative Party leader Mr Iain Duncan Smith told reporters after meeting Mr Blair for a private war briefing.
Mr Duncan Smith said war was now more likely and that Mr Blair had told him "the French have become completely intransigent" with their threat to veto a resolution authorising force against Iraq.
In a change of tone that points to growing British-US exasperation at efforts to win support for their hard line on Iraq, Britain also condemned France for its threat to veto a new Iraq resolution.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw accused France of "extraordinary" behaviour as the United States and Britain - with troops in the region ready for action - struggle to forge a broad coalition for the use of force against Iraq.
The French veto threat, Mr Blair told the Conservative leader, was making it difficult to convince the crucial clutch of undecided nations on the UN Security Council to come behind that new resolution.
"Whilst that veto [threat] sits there absolute . . . the unaligned nations are saying 'why should we stick our heads above the parapets'," Mr Duncan Smith said.
Until now, Mr Blair - who has repeatedly pushed Washington to gather world support rather than go it alone against Baghdad - has insisted he was confident of winning a fresh UN mandate.
Britain has offered a last-ditch measure: six tests which Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein must meet to show he is ready to meet disarmament demands or face war.
But France said today the new ideas did not address the key issue of seeking a peaceful solution to the crisis and that the French government rejected the "logic of ultimatums".
PA