February 2, 2003	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 29, 1423

LONDON, Feb 1: British Prime Minister Tony Blair returned home from Washington on Saturday sounding more hopeful of securing a second, politically crucial UN resolution to underpin a US-led military assault on Iraq.

During a full afternoon of talks at the White House, US President George W. Bush and Blair, his staunchest ally in the showdown with Saddam Hussein, agreed Friday that the crisis must come to a head “in weeks, not months.”

“I believe there will be a second resolution,” Blair told reporters on his flight back to London, where he was preparing this weekend for talks on Tuesday with French President Jacques Chirac, who is wary of waging war on Iraq.

“I think it’s important to get this thing (the crisis over Iraq and weapons of mass destruction) resolved one way or another — and I think it will be very clear to people whether Saddam is cooperating or not in the next few weeks.”

The Times newspaper, quoting unnamed British officials, said Bush agreed to the idea of a fresh UN Security Council resolution, albeit without enthusiasm, so long as it did not drag out the crisis for more than four to six weeks.

Other British newspapers spoke of six weeks — or mid-March — as well, but Blair and close aides travelling with him said there was still no firm timetable for abandoning UN arms inspections for brute military force.

Blair confirmed that he discussed with Bush the possible wording of a second resolution, one that would reassure global public opinion and bring reluctant nations like France and Germany on side.

“We obviously discussed what could go into such a resolution, and obviously the diplomatic efforts to secure it,” he told journalists at the back of his chartered airliner.

In an interview aired Saturday on BBC radio, Blair elaborated: “What he (Bush) is anxious to ensure, and what I am anxious to ensure, is that the whole debate about a second resolution doesn’t just become a means of putting this thing off for months and months and months.”

Blair also reiterated that “even now” Saddam could avoid war by cooperating fully with UN weapons inspectors, as it is obliged to do under Resolution 1441, adopted in November.

“It is really a question of whether people believe Saddam is likely to comply or not,” he said, adding: “Personally, I think it is frankly obvious he is not.”

Blair played down the rift within Europe over Iraq, after he and seven other European leaders published an open letter Thursday reaffirming their determination not to let the crisis sabotage Euro-American ties.

The signatures of Chirac — who told Blair this past week that military action was still not yet justified — and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder were conspicuous by their absence from the letter.

Looking ahead to Tuesday’s Anglo-French summit at Le Touquet, a well-heeled resort town on the French side of the English Channel, Blair said: “I’ll obviously explain to him (Chirac) the discussions I had with the president.”

“You know, France has set out its position, and Britain has set out its position. But we came together on the initial resolution (1441)... This is a process that has its own integrity,” he said on his plane.

Bush summed up his position Friday: “This needs to be resolved quickly. Should the United Nations decide to pass a second resolution, it’d be welcome if it is yet another signal that we’re intent on disarming Saddam Hussein.

“But 1441 gives us the authority to move without any second resolution,” the president said, to which Blair added that if the Iraqis fail to disarm under the gaze of UN inspectors, “they will have to be disarmed by force.”

Blair is Bush’s most loyal ally on Iraq, committing 30,000 troops, 120 tanks and a 16-ship naval task force led by the aircraft carrier Ark Royal to a conflict that looks increasingly likely.

But despite his privileged access to Bush, Downing Street sources said the president did not give Blair any preview of the intelligence on Iraq and the Al Qaeda network.—AFP