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UNITED NATIONS, Sept 28: The draft of a US/Britain-sponsored resolution demands that Iraq disclose all materials on weapons of mass destruction and give UN weapons team complete and total access to presidential palaces, diplomats and officials here said.
The resolution, to be submitted to the UN Security Council next week after the US secures support from Russia, France and China, would give Iraqi President Saddam Hussein seven days in which to agree to the tough stipulation of first disarming itself and then presenting to the council a list of banned materials in Baghdad’s possession.
However, no tacit or formal approval has been given to the United States by France, Russia and China whom the US envoys have contacted.
In the 15-member UN Security Council, five permanent members — France, Russia, China, US and Britain — have veto powers to kill any resolution. Hence, the United States is pulling all stops to persuade these three countries to come on board.
US President Bush called French President Jacques Chirac to try to win his backing for the US-British proposal. But Chirac resisted, telling Bush he opposed threatening Iraq with military force before inspections.
Chirac, instead, urged Bush to back a French approach for two resolutions — the first one calling for full compliance and cooperation with inspectors, and the second one authorizing force should Iraq fail to comply.
The US Undersecretary of State, Marc Grossman, who shared the US draft with French officials in Paris on Friday, was bound for Moscow for more meetings Saturday. Grossman was accompanied by British diplomat, Peter Ricketts, and London sent a second envoy to Beijing for talks with senior Chinese officials.
IRAQ REJECTS NEW RESOLUTION: In Baghdad, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan rejected the draft resolution.
“Our position on the inspectors has been decided and any additional procedure is meant to hurt Iraq and is unacceptable,” Ramadan said.
Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz also warned at a seminar Saturday that the United States would suffer major losses if invaded Iraq and an influential Baghdad newspaper denied US accusations that Iraq had links with Al Qaeda.
“Any aggression on Iraq will not be a picnic, instead it will be a fierce fight where America will suffer losses that have not been sustained for decades,” Aziz said. “Iraq is determined to resist and defeat any US attack.”
Aziz accused “Zionist circles” in Britain and the United States of pushing the two nations into war against Iraq to serve Israel, and added: “They (the Americans and the British) are trying to redraw the map of the Arab region in order to control its resources.”
The draft resolution, to be jointly proposed by the United States and Britain — the other permanent members of the Security Council — has not been made public. But details were disclosed Friday, three days before the chief UN weapons inspector was to discuss preparations for his staff’s return with Iraqi experts in Vienna.
According to diplomats, the draft resolution gives the inspectors the right to designate “no-fly” and “no-drive” zones in Iraq. Currently, “no-fly” zones in the north and south of the country are patrolled by US and British warplanes.
The resolution also disregards the assurances the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had given to Saddam in 1998 that presidential sites, including Saddam’s palaces, would stay beyond the scope of inspection.
According to the deal between Annan and Iraq, inspectors were not allowed to spring surprise inspections on any of the eight so-called presidential sites, which encompass a total of about 12 square miles and include several palaces.
The resolution also envisions an end to the Iraqi practice of assigning government guides to accompany inspectors as they moved through the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere around the country.
