対米全面テロ

US Compromises at UN but Leaves Room to Attack Iraq

October 18, 2002 10:06 PM ET



By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has offered a compromise U.N. resolution that drops explicit authorization to use force against Iraq but still provides some international legal cover to attack Baghdad, according to excerpts from the U.S. draft.

Although U.S. officials stressed again on Friday they could strike Iraq at any time in self-defense and without U.N. approval, even close ally Britain would have second thoughts about joining a military action without some kind of new United Nations Security Council resolution.

Almost every nation in the world expressed apprehension about a war in the Middle East in speeches before U.N. Security Council members on Wednesday and Thursday.

Most advocated that U.N. arms inspectors return to Baghdad to search for weapons of mass destruction and that any use of force has to be authorized by the 15-member council.

But Western nations admitted that Iraq would not have agreed to readmit the U.N. inspectors, after a four-year hiatus, without Washington's military threat.

Even Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on Friday that Moscow would support the use of force if a decision were made by the United Nations.

Bowing to worldwide criticism, the Bush administration deleted from its revised text a key provision that automatically authorized a U.N. member, like the United States, to use "all necessary means" whenever it decided Iraq had violated U.N. disarmament demands.

Instead, the new U.S. proposals would call on U.N. weapons inspectors, searching for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, to report to the Security Council any violations by Baghdad, which could delay any military strike Washington has in mind.

The 15-member body would then meet to consider action.