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Fresh UN vote put off

Split to send Saddam wrong signal: Britain

REUTERS, London/Baghdad
Britain said yesterday splits that have delayed a fresh UN vote on Iraq were sending Saddam Hussein the wrong signal as opponents of a rush to war pressed for an extension of weapons inspections.
Efforts by Britain and the United States to give Iraq a March 17 ultimatum on scrapping weapons of mass destruction or face attack have failed to draw widespread backing, forcing them to put off a vote in the Security Council until later this week.
Both France and Russia say they will block such a deadline. Other members of the 15-nation Security
Council have suggested giving Iraq a further month or more to comply.
"My concern is if countries talk about using a veto in all sets of circumstances, the message that sends to Saddam is: you're off the hook," British Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters in London.
A flurry of telephone diplomacy by President Bush pushing for the swift ultimatum have made little headway, but he has said he would attack Iraq even without UN support.
This would cause major problems for his number one ally, Blair, who faces open revolt within his Labour Party if British troops join in an attack without Security
Council approval.
In Iraq, workers began destroying more of the prohibited al-Samoud 2 missiles, a day after chief weapons inspector Hans Blix criticised Baghdad for not declaring a suspicious drone.
Iraq has denied accusations it is hiding weapons of mass destruction and says it is cooperating with UN inspectors.
The US military has built up massive forces around the Gulf and says it is ready for war, but some analysts say Washington might be willing to delay the widely expected attack by two or three weeks to give time to complete its preparations.
"It seems to me the Americans
are still very interested in operating from Turkish bases," said Gary Samore of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London.
Samore said Washington might wait for Turkish ruling party leader Tayyip Erdogan to be installed as prime minister this week and resubmit to parliament a request to let US troops deploy in Turkey for a "northern front" against Iraq.
The Turkish parliament narrowly rejected the US request on March 1, jeopardising a multi-billion dollar US aid package.
The United States accused Iraq on Monday of placing explosives at the Kirkuk oilfields in the north of the country ahead of a possible war, but Baghdad denied the charge and said Iraq had taken steps to guarantee oil output if it was attacked.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov repeated yesterday that Moscow would veto the new US-British resolution on Iraq. During a visit to Iran he warned that a unilateral attack would undermine the United Nations and "perhaps would be a pretext for radical and terrorist organisations to step up their actions."
French President Jacques Chirac declared on Monday he would veto the resolution. China said yesterday it opposed the ultimatum, but has not yet stated if it would vote it down.
Bush hopes to line up nine votes in the Security Council so he can claim some moral legitimacy for the ultimatum even if the resolution is killed by a veto.
So far Washington can count on only four votes -- its own and
those of Britain, Spain and Bulgaria. France, Russia, China, Germany and Syria oppose a rush to war. Pakistan, Chile, Mexico, Angola, Cameroon and Guinea remained uncommitted.
The Security Council was due to start an open debate on the crisis later yesterday. The Council agreed Monday to hold a third open session to allow all UN states to air their views on Iraq.
Earlier, Britain's ambassador to UN said, a March 17 deadline for Iraq to comply with UN disarmament demands is not a set in stone hinting that the date could be put back.
"March 17 has nothing magic to it as the 17th, but it is a clear indication by the co-sponsors that time is short, it is no more than that, " envoy Jeremy Greenstock told BBC radio in an interview from New York.
With Bush facing opposition at home and abroad, veteran US diplomat John H. Brown resigned on Monday in protest at Washington's Iraq policy.
A CBS News/New York Times poll published late Monday showed that while a majority of Americans were growing frustrated with the UN handling of the Iraq crisis, they still favoured giving weapons inspectors more time to complete their mission.