IRELAND: The unanimous support for the UN resolution represented a considerable achievement which had enhanced the authority of the Security Council and the UN, the Taoiseach said last night.
Mr Ahern said in a statement that the resolution contained a "two stage strategy" in relation to Iraq for which Ireland had pressed from the outset. The resolution was not about going to war with Iraq, but disarming Iraq.
"The UN inspectors have an enormous responsibility ahead of them", he went on. "But they know that they will be discharging this responsibility with the unanimous support and full authority of the Security Council. There is no greater strength and authority within our international system."
However Fine Gael demanded that the Government get Dáil approval before supporting any military attack on Iraq, or allowing Shannon airport to be used to facilitate such an attack.
The party's foreign affairs spokesman Mr Gay Mitchell said his party "will not co-sign a blank cheque approach to military intervention in Iraq . . . Fine Gael expects the Government to seek prior Dáil approval for any vote which Ireland may cast at the UN Security Council which would involve military action in Iraq following failure to comply with a UN resolution."
He said that while his party was to the fore in advocating Irish involvement in international security structures, Ireland must remain "in independent control of its sovereign right to decide on what role, if any, we will take in security/defence matters".
The Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said war should not be the inevitable consequence of the passing of the resolution.
"Any motion passed unanimously by the Security Council of the United Nations is entitled to the respect of all member-states," he said. "This motion does not give the United States or any other country the moral authority to wage war against Iraq. We support the view expressed by Ambassador Richard Ryan that this motion is about disarmament, and not military action", he said.
However the Socialist Party TD, Mr Joe Higgins, said the vote showed the UN had become "a cynical conglomerate of states that have now capitulated totally to the obvious war plans of the Bush Administration. It is clear that Bush's plan is to use the resolution to justify the war he has wanted to fight all along."
He said such a war would "in fact be an adventure to assert the economic, political and military pre-eminence of the United States and to ring fence oil supplies for its needs". He said the Government had behaved with "cringing subservience".
Mr Roger Cole, of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, said he feared the resolution could be interpreted as allowing the US go to war without further recourse to the UN Security Council. He welcomed the concessions that were achieved, but said Ireland should not have voted for it.
"If there is a war, it will not be about civil rights and democracy but oil supplies," he said.