Iraq is expected to be given at least 18 more days to show "proactive" co-operation on disarmament, under a proposal made at the United Nations yesterday by Germany, which currently holds the UN Security Council presidency.
The proposal, that UN weapons inspectors report again to the council on February 14th, was immediately welcomed by Britain, the closest ally of the United States in the Iraq crisis.
This emerged after the UN's chief weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix, told the Security Council yesterday that Iraq "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance" of its disarmament obligations, and had failed to make a full disclosure of its biological and chemical weapons programmes.
Stocks on Wall street plunged as Washington reacted negatively to the report by Dr Blix and Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, adding to a growing sense of the inevitability of war in the coming weeks.
Dr Blix told the Security Council that Baghdad had co-operated passively with the inspections process but sharply criticised Iraq for not providing scientists or documentation.
Dr Blix did not specifically ask the council for more time for inspections to achieve disarmament, but emphasised the value of continued inspections. Dr ElBaradei said that there was no evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapons programme and asked for a few more months to enable the inspectors to provide credible assurances of that.
US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell said Iraq's refusal to disarm "still threatens international peace and security." "The issue was not how much more time the inspectors needed to search in the dark," he said, "but how much more time Iraq should be given to turn on the lights and come clean." Mr Powell challenged the relevance and credibility of the council and recalled that Resolution 1441 provided for "serious consequences" for non-compliance. He insisted that Iraq continued to conceal "vast quantities of lethal materials", though Dr Blix said in his report it was not possible to conclude whether the stocks of banned weapons existed or not.
The White House reacted coolly to a plea from UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan for more time. "The more time the inspectors get the more time they get the run-around," said spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer.
The council went into closed session after the inspectors made their report, during which US ambassador Mr John Negroponte questioned Dr Blix and Dr ElBaradei about how much more time they needed. The council will meet again tomorrow, just hours after President Bush outlines the case against Iraq in his State of the Union address in Washington tonight.
Mr Powell said that a decision on how much more time to give Iraq would not be made until after Mr Bush meets British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair on Friday at Camp David. The US Secretary of State would reveal fresh evidence against Iraq after the Camp David summit, US officials said.
British UN ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock said, "Regard this as part of an ongoing process. The German presidency made clear they would like another report on February 14th and we would welcome that." China and Russia, which hold veto power on the council, said they strongly supported inspections continuing.