March 14, 2003	Friday	Muharram 10, 1424

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WASHINGTON, March 13: US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday that the United States might abandon its effort to seek UN approval for launching an invasion of Iraq and walk away from the Security Council without seeking a vote.

He also indicated the debate on a new resolution could extend past this week.

“The options remain: go for a vote and see what members say, or not go for a vote,” Mr Powell told a House appropriations sub-committee. “But all the options that you can imagine are before us, and we’ll be examining them today, tomorrow and into the weekend.”

The secretary of state said the United States was still seeking a compromise “that wouldn’t draw a veto”.

“We are working hard to see if we can take this to a vote that would be a vote that would help unify the council,” Powell said. “But we haven’t excluded any of the obvious options that are out there.”

He said the British offer to provide Iraq with six conditions it could meet to avoid an attack was an effort to go “one last step”.

“Not all of us have bought all various elements of the six tests, but we certainly are looking closely with the British, with the Spanish and many others,” he said.

“Iraq isn’t looking for a solution. They know the tests. The tests have been out there forever,” he added.

Earlier in the day, a White House spokesman indicated that Washington was willing to give more time to the UN Council to deliberate on the draft resolution before pushing for a vote.

The spokesman, Ari Fleischer, told reporters at a briefing that the debate “may conclude tomorrow. It may continue into next week”. It was a clear departure from his previous stance that the United States would not wait for the debate to be over.

The US administration had earlier aimed for a vote on Friday, but wavered after struggling to muster the nine votes needed for success.

Officials said President George Bush was considering making a speech in which he would give Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a clear deadline by which to disarm or face an attack.

The president was open to briefly delaying a vote on the resolution until next week if the postponement would help gain support for the measure, said the White House spokesman.

On Wednesday the spokesman had said the vote would take place this week, indicating that Washington would go alone all the way if the world body did not endorse the resolution.

But observers in Washington say that a revolt in Britain’s ruling Labour Party has forced the Bush administration to reconsider its strategy. “The administration feels that going to war without UN approval may sink (Prime Minister) Tony Blair,” said one observer. “That’s why it is willing to wait for the debate in the Security Council to conclude.”

Some US officials claimed on Thursday they were close to securing the nine votes, but six undecided nations _ Pakistan, Chile, Mexico, Angola, Cameroon and Guinea _ did not confirm this.

Diplomatic sources in Washington say that it is the British prime minister who has piloted the push for United Nations support because he hopes that a resolution would quash a threatened revolt within his Labour Party.

But the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, said if the United States found it “unfruitful” to pursue the British plan, “we are not going to pursue it”.