- (AFP) -- Iraq said that it expected UN weapons inspectors
to arrive next week as Russia again blocked US attempts for the United
Nations to take a hardline on President Saddam Hussein.
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- Fresh from winning Congress authorisation to order military
action against Iraq if necessary, President George W. Bush is now turning
his attention to the United Nations to step up pressure on Baghdad.
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- But a letter sent by the Iraq government to chief UN
arms inspector Hans Blix said the Baghdad authorities were ready to welcome
an advance team from October 19, diplomats at the UN said.
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- But the letter also highlighted Iraqi "sovereignty,"
and the United States rejected the move. A senior Washington official said
Iraq was "playing games with the inspectors."
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- British Prime Minister Tony Blair went to Russia in a
bid to convince President Vladimir Putin of the need for a tough UN resolution
against Saddam's weapons programme.
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- Russia wants new weapons inspections, not the threat
of force.
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- "The US draft resolution cannot be accepted as a
basis for a future UN Security Council resolution on Iraq as it contains
clearly unfulfillable demands," Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov
was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
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- Fedotov added that any UN resolution must "reflect
the views of all members" including Russia.
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- The five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security
Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- are
debating the shape of a resolution that would require Iraq to abandon its
alleged quest to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
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- After two days of talks with Blair, Putin said there
was no firm case against Saddam. "Russia does not have in its possession
any trustworthy data which would support the existence of nuclear weapons
or any other weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received
from our partners such information as yet," he said.
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- But he also insisted Russia was ready for more negotiations
with UN partners.
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- Blair was still confident after meeting Putin. "The
next few days and weeks will tell, but my best guess is that we will get
the resolution we need," he said on his return to London.
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- Russia, an oil exporter with complex economic ties to
Baghdad, has indicated that it favors a French approach to the crisis --
a two-resolution plan that would only threaten the use of force, if necessary,
in a second resolution.
-
- After the US Congress gave Bush the green light early
Friday to wage war unilaterally against Iraq if UN efforts fail to disarm
it, the US administration turned its attention to the United Nations.
-
- The US motion -- approved by both houses -- allows Bush
to use force "in a manner necessary and appropriate to defend the
national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed
by Iraq and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions
regarding Iraq."
-
- Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz responded with
his own warning.
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- "I am not surprised by this vote, and we will confront
these plans of aggression," he said.
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- "Such an attack would be disastrous for everyone,
even those offering facilities and services to the US aggressors,"
he added, in a reference to Arab nations allied with the United States.
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- "We are not the ones who decide that, but we are
ready to respond to it within the hour," Aziz said in Beirut.
-
- Friday was marked by an array of appeals from notable
leaders and this year's freshly-announced Nobel Peace Prize laureate, former
US president Jimmy Carter to ensure that war is a last possible resort.
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- Carter said he would have voted against the US Congress
resolution
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- "I think there is no way that we can avoid the obligation
to work through the United Nations Security Council," the 78-year-old
Carter told CNN television.
-
- He said the United States should wait for a UN "condemnation
of Saddam" and for the United Nations to force the Iraqi leader "to
comply completely with inspections of an unlimited nature and to make sure
we destroy all his weapons of mass destruction and his ability to produce
nuclear weapons in the future."
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- In Oslo, Nobel Committee chairman Gunnar Berge said the
judges' choice of the former US president "can and must be interpreted
as a criticism of the position of the administration currently sitting
in the US towards Iraq."
-
- In Berlin, German Defense Minister Peter Struck, meanwhile,
said the congressional votes did not change Germany's opposition to action.
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- Berlin's stance against a strike, even with a UN mandate,
has angered Washington to the point that Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder are no longer on speaking terms.
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