UN/Analysis: The bitter Security Council schism may be deepened, writes Conor O'Clery, North America Editor.
Today's session of the UN Security Council was originally planned as a private meeting, with ambassadors listening to a briefing from chief weapons inspector Hans Blix about the progress of disarmament in Iraq and then retiring to consult their governments.
It will now be a full dress affair, attended by ministers, and the stage is set for high international drama in an amphitheatre of undisguised antagonisms.
Diplomats at the UN believe the bitter schism in the council will, if anything, be deepened as members lay out their opposing arguments for a world audience.
The Americans and the British spent yesterday trying to wrest back the initiative for their resolution, following a series of crushing setbacks that has left Washington more isolated than ever in its confrontation with Iraq.
The declaration from Paris on Wednesday that France, Germany and Russia "will not allow a resolution to pass that authorises resorting to force" hit the White House like a thunderbolt.
The denouement occurred as opposition to the hard-edged rhetoric and the seeming impatience for war from the Bush administration hardened on European capitals.
The criticism wasn't only coming from "old Europe". The White House had itself laid the groundwork for the mess, the New York Times said, with its "arrogant handling of other nations and dismissive attitudes towards international accords". The Washington Post reported that the setback for American diplomacy arose partly from the impression Mr Bush gave that the UN was a "useless distraction".
Outside of the issue of Iraq, the admonition to the Bush administration is being taken as implying a new set of post-Cold War relationships. It could all wind up, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger predicted, as a "sort of 19th-century balance-of-power game".
It wasn't just Iraq that was at stake, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser, said. "At stake is our global role."
At the UN the pressure is greater on the US to make its case that Iraq is an imminent danger, rather than on the six undecided Security Council countries - Mexico, Chile, Pakistan, Guinea, Angola and Cameroon - to jump one way or another.
The Bush administration moved quickly against the slide in support. On Wednesday Colin Powell hurriedly scheduled a speech, saying in exasperated tones that Iraq had "not made a strategic, political decision to disarm".
After telling Congress yesterday that holding back now would send a "terrible message" to tyrants everywhere, he travelled to New York to start bending ears, and arms, before today's final confrontation.
The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, arrived at the UN in a snowstorm, on a similar mission. The one thing that was certain, he said, was that Saddam Hussein had not complied with his disarmament obligations, and that the 167-page report from Hans Blix would provide a "shocking indictment" of his record of deception and deceit. The last act before today's curtain-up was President Bush's rare formal press conference last night, designed once again to make the case for disarming Saddam, but not yet to declare war.
An extra edge has been given to today's showdown by the underlying personal animus that has developed between Colin Powell and Hans Blix. The White House was furious last month when the the mild-mannered Swede cast doubt on some of the assertions about Iraqi dirty tricks Mr Powell made in his famous slide presentation to the council on February 5th.
Dr Blix further irritated the White House on Wednesday when he held a press conference to say that Iraq is now providing "a great deal more" co-operation and their destruction of the al-Samoud 2 rockets was "real disarmament".
Mr Powell will be knocking that down today. Then the bargaining will begin over a possible British compromise which could see a timeline added to the resolution, as the Canadians have proposed.
But when all is said and done, the US-Britain-Spain resolution finding that Saddam has missed his last chance to disarm, may still have to be abandoned if the votes are not there.
Then President Bush, possibly late next week, is expected to address the American people with the message that the UN has not lived up to its responsibilities, and that the United States has lost patience with Saddam Hussein and he will now be disarmed by force.