US and British diplomats are working on a new resolution authorising military action against Iraq, which could be put before the UN Security Council as early as tomorrow, despite deep divisions among the five permanent members of the council about the necessity for war.
NATO ambassadors failed for a second day yesterday to heal a rift over sending military equipment to help Turkey defend its border with Iraq in the event of war. A brief meeting of NATO's decision-making North Atlantic Council broke up last night after France, Germany and Belgium refused to drop their opposition to the proposal.
Diplomatic sources suggested that agreement was unlikely until after the chief UN weapons inspectors, Dr Hans Blix and Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, deliver a report to the Security Council tomorrow.
As foreign ministers travel to New York for yet another crisis meeting at the UN, the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said he hoped "to rally the United Nations" around another resolution "in order to satisfy the political needs of a number of other other countries". But the United States will not be deterred, he told a House committee on Capitol Hill.
"Iraq must be disarmed, peacefully or with the use of military force." The UN was reaching "a moment of truth" with respect to Resolution 1441 to disarm Iraq, and "with respect to the relevance of the UN Security Council \ as to whether or not this matter will be resolved peacefully or whether it will be resolved by military conflict".
Mr Powell expressed anger at the French and Germans for wanting more inspections and more time. "The question I put to them is, why more inspections and why more time? Or are you just delaying for the sake of delaying in order to get Saddam Hussein off the hook over disarmament?"
France, China and Russia have said they want to see Iraq disarmed peacefully through continued inspections. France has submitted a plan to the council to triple the number of inspectors to 300 and provide heightened intelligence back-up and air surveillance. The proposal, backed by Russia and Germany, would set a timetable for Iraq to respond on unresolved disarmament issues.
In his address to Congress members, Mr Powell rejected the charge that it would be "terrible" if infidels in the shape of the American military went into Iraq. "Nobody complained when infidels went into Kuwait, to save the people from invasion by Iraq," he said. "We were welcomed by the Muslim population of Kuwait. Nobody talked about infidels when we acted in Kosovo."
The Afghans were learning today what the people of Japan and Germany had learned, that "America comes in peace, America comes as a partner, America comes to help people to put in place better systems of government that respect the rights of men and women. America never comes as a conqueror".
Several Congress members bitterly attacked France yesterday after Mr Powell's testimony. Democrat, Mr Tom Lantos, of California, said he was "particularly disgusted by the blind intransigence and utter ingratitude" of France, Germany and Belgium. "If it were not for the heroic efforts of America's military, France, Germany and Belgium today would be Soviet socialist republics," he said.
Mark Brennock writes: The Taoiseach has declined to say whether the Government would support a US-led war on Iraq without UN approval. Despite sustained Dáil questioning from the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, he declined to confirm or deny a report in yesterday's Irish Times that he and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, were crafting their statements on Iraq to leave open the possibility of supporting a US-led war without UN or EU backing.