US: The US text for a tough new resolution on Iraq is dead in the water and has gone back to Washington for toning town, diplomatic sources at the UN in New York said yesterday.
However, the US President, Mr Bush, got the agreement of Republican leaders of the House of Representatives yesterday for a resolution in the US Congress which would authorise the President to use force against Iraq with or without a UN resolution.
The chief UN weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix, will brief the 15 UN Security Council members in New York today about the agreement he reached in Vienna with Iraq on Tuesday to send back weapons inspectors by mid-October under existing UN resolutions.
This is unlikely to happen. US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell said Washington would keep the pressure up for a new resolution and that inspectors should only go in "when they have the authority to do their job... and that will only come from a new resolution."
A new UN resolution is many days away because of deep divisions in the Security Council. France and Russia have refused to negotiate the text of the new US-proposed resolution until what they regard as hardline elements are removed, UN sources said.
The US text gives Baghdad seven days to accept all provisions in the resolution and 30 days to document all its weapons of mass destruction. Only then could inspectors begin their work and if any non-disclosure was found, any UN member could use force against Iraq.
At a meeting of the five permanent members on Tuesday, the French and Russian delegates objected specifically to provisions to provide military back-up for arms inspections, to interview Iraqi officials and their families outside Iraq, and to enforce no-fly and no-drive zones and ground and air transit zones inside Iraq, diplomats said.
The White House is still pressing for coercive inspections, with Security Council members supplying armed escorts for inspectors, but this was "not a realistic possibility", a UN diplomat said.
The idea was floated recently by Ms Jessica Matthews, president of the Carnegie Institute, as a way of positioning sizeable forces on Iraq's borders, prepared to secure any facility from which inspectors were barred.
Removing the special status of the eight Iraqi presidential sites, negotiated in a 1998 agreement between Iraq and the UN, is however very much still on the table. The 1998 accord stipulated special arrangements for any inspections of the presidential sites, but this falls far short of Washington's demand for "unfettered access" to anywhere in Iraq.
The provisions in the US text indicate that the Bush administration is now focusing on a possible alternative to a full military invasion.
Washington in fact has been signalling that it would be happy to see Iraqi President Saddam Hussein removed in other ways, through popular revolt, an army mutiny, voluntary exile or assassination.
Critics yesterday accused the White House of stepping over the line when spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer stated on Tuesday that assassination would be cheaper than a war in Iraq. Asked about the cost of a war, Mr Fleischer told reporters: "The cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less than that."
Senate Republican leader Mr Trent Lott said yesterday: "It certainly would be easier and would be cheaper but we do have an executive order in America on the books that says that we don't assassinate leaders of other countries in the world, whether we like it or not."
The White House backed away from the statement yesterday, saying Mr Bush was not considering lifting the ban on US agents assassinating foreign leaders.
Meanwhile Mr Bush and House leaders agreed yesterday on a Congress resolution for dealing with Iraqi "diplomatically if we can, militarily if we must".
Mr Bush made a concession to Democrats and pledged to certify to Congress - before any military strike, if feasible, or within 48 hours of a US attack - that diplomatic and other peaceful means alone were inadequate to protect Americans from Mr Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.