U.S. resolution on Iraq ready

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration expects to submit to the U.N. Security Council by today a revised resolution that would force Iraq to disarm. It hopes for prompt approval.

Optimistic, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "We're moving closer now to having a text that we think can gain broad support."

Also, Boucher said, "We think there is growing support in the council for a strong resolution that makes clear to Iraq that it has failed to comply in the past, that it needs to comply with a tough inspection regime, that there'll be serious consequences if it doesn't."

The Associated Press, citing a U.S. official, said that if a consensus is reached, the next step would be a meeting of the United States and the four other permanent members of the Security Council: Britain, France, Russia and China.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was more cautious. "There are no assurances about what will happen next," he said.

The text has been revised to reflect eight weeks of U.S. diplomacy involving France, Russia and other U.N. Security Council members that object to threatening war against Iraq if it should refuse to disarm or to cooperate with weapons inspectors.

Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda, whose country is on the Security Council and has strongly supported the Russian and French positions, said late Monday he believes the revised draft will be approved by 14 of the 15 Council members -- with Iraq's Arab neighbor Syria abstaining.

Secretary of State Colin Powell continued his telephone diplomacy Tuesday. He spoke to Foreign Ministers Dominique de Villepin of France and Igor Ivanov of Russia, as well as to Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary whose government is cosponsoring the revised resolution with the United States.

Powell, in an interview with European newspapers, said: "We will know early on whether or not Iraq is intending to cooperate or not to cooperate."

Apparently skeptical that President Saddam Hussein would go along with U.N. demands, Powell said Iraq has tried to tie the United Nations in knots "and to force the U.N. to play the same game that Iraq always wins at."

Whether Iraqi defiance will lead to war remains to be seen, Powell said.

"That judgment, really, is in the hands of the U.N., the United States, like-minded nations and ultimately whether Iraq is going to come into compliance with international law or not," he said.

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