IRAQ: US efforts to convince both the American public and members of the international community of the necessity for war against Iraq flagged noticeably at the weekend. Some 100,000 demonstrators staged the largest anti-war protest in Washington since the Vietnam era, while US officials at an Asian Pacific summit in Mexico conceded they may have to abandon attempts to get UN support for action against Baghdad.
The anti-war demonstrators, who filled the streets around the White House shoulder to shoulder for several blocks on Saturday afternoon, sent a noisy but peaceful message to the administration - that huge numbers of Americans are opposed to going it alone against Iraq.
President Bush sent an equally determined message to the world that this is precisely what the US will do if it does not get security council support to confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"If the UN does not pass a resolution which holds him to account and that has consequences, then, as I have said in speech after speech after speech, if the UN won't act - if Saddam Hussein won't disarm - we will lead a coalition to disarm him," Mr Bush said at the 21-nation Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Los Cabos, Mexico.
The protest in Washington coincided with other anti-war demonstrations across the US. "If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority," the Rev Jesse Jackson told the cheering throng gathered in warm sunshine near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
In a message to Mr Bush, civil rights activist the Rev Al Sharpton said, "America should not bring the world to nuclear war over the interests of those business tycoons who put you in the White House." Other anti-war speakers included actress Susan Sarandon, who said, "Let us hate war in all its forms, whether the weapon used is a missile or an airplane." Also present were singer Patti Smith, and former attorney general Ramsey Clark.
The vast crowd was made up largely of young people, and at times it seemed many were emulating a well-known protest scene from the anti-Vietnam War movie Forrest Gump, when they waded into the waters of a lake at Constitution Gardens.
In contrast to the Vietnam War protests, which peaked with a rally of a quarter of a million in 1969, this demonstration preceded war. Marchers carried placards saying "Drop Bush, Not Bombs" and calling for regime change in Washington. Several women appeared topless. "The message is they are taking the shirts off our back," said one, referring to the billions being devoted to military preparations. Among the marchers, who chanted "One, two, three, four, we don't want your racist war", was an Uncle Sam on stilts with a long Pinocchio-like nose.
The demonstration was peaceful, with just three arrests for disorderly behaviour. Among a group of Iraqi-Americans staging a counter-demonstration, Aziz al-Taee of the Iraqi-American Council, said, "Every day Saddam stays in power, he kills more Iraqis." Some 2,000 drum-beating protesters marched on a home owned by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld near Taos, New Mexico, waving placards that read, "Rumsfeld is a War Criminal". In San Francisco, 20 children with pictures of Mr Rumsfeld, Mr Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney labelled "weapons of mass destruction" led a protest of 40,000 people.
Mr Bush appeared tetchy at a photo session with Mexico President Vicente Fox, one of the 10 rotating members of the UN Security Council, who remains unconvinced by US arguments on Iraq. In a breach of protocol, he cut off the translation into English of remarks by Mr Fox in Spanish that Mexico wanted a resolution "acceptable to all council members".
Later the US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the prospects for a tough US-drafted UN resolution may be slipping away. "I don't want to say we are near a resolution because it may evade us," he said. France and Russia have frustrated Washington with their insistence that the US resolution gives the US too much freedom to launch a military attack. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that it would not be "very hard at all" to assemble a coalition against Iraq, though only the UK and Bulgaria have signed on to US plans so far.
The US resolution would give UN arms inspectors broad powers to seek out any weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq and would declare Iraq in "material breach" of existing resolutions and warn Iraq of "serious consequences" if it thwarted UN weapons inspections. This could give the US a trigger for military action without a follow-up Security Council resolution.