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UK presses for Iraq deal
LONDON, England -- British officials have vowed to continue pushing for a compromise solution to the Iraq crisis but say French intransigence will make military action by the United States more likely. And in Washington Thursday, Bush administration officials, who had insisted a vote on a new resolution would be held this week, said the debate on Britain's latest proposal to give Iraq six benchmarks it must meet to avoid war might push a vote into next week. Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Baghdad dismissed Britain's plan Thursday. The proposals "do not respond to the questions the international community is asking," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said. "It's not a question of giving Iraq a few more days before committing to the use of force. It's about making resolute progress towards peaceful disarmament, as mapped out by (U.N. weapons) inspections that offer a credible alternative to war," de Villepin said. Straw, speaking outside Downing Street in London, responded: "I find it extraordinary that without even proper consideration, the French government has decided it will reject these proposals." Moscow reiterated on Thursday that it would vote against any resolution "which directly or indirectly paves the way for launching a war against Iraq." And Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, said the benchmarks amounted to a plan for war. (Iraqi rejection) "It is a dressing up of a rejected proposal, an aggressive plan for war. It polishes up a resolution rejected by the vast majority of the Security Council," Sabri told reporters. After intense criticism by Britain and the U.S., Villepin later struck a more emollient note, saying that France was open to all possibilities. "We want a solution and we are looking for consensus within the Security Council," Reuters quoted him as saying. White House officials again argued that the current Iraq resolution authorized the use of force and that there may be no vote on a new resolution if Britain and the United States did not feel a compromise was possible. Security Council members were scheduled to meet behind closed doors again Thursday afternoon to discuss the British proposal. Britain and the United States say they have not given up hope. UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday: "We shall carry on negotiating until we have reached a conclusion that it is not possible. "But for the time being and this will run through today and tomorrow and maybe through the weekend," Straw said. Under the British plan Iraq must either surrender its anthrax stockpiles or provide documentation showing they have been destroyed, and turn over any aircraft or equipment with the capability of spraying chemicals. (Full story) Straw said it was prepared to drop its demand that Iraqi President Saddam appear on television if it helped secure a second United Nations resolution.
However, British leaders signaled that they had accepted that war was more probable than ever. After meeting Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is facing widespread public and political dissent, UK opposition leader Iain Duncan Smith said a new resolution was "now probably less likely than at any time before." "The French have become completely intransigent," Conservative leader Duncan Smith said. The French stance, Duncan Smith quoted Blair as saying, was making it difficult to convince non-aligned nations on the U.N. Security Council to back a new resolution. "Whilst that veto (threat) sits there absolute ... the unaligned nations are saying, 'Why should we stick our heads above the parapets,'" he added. U.S. defense adviser Richard Perle also took aim at French policy Thursday, accusing Chirac of siding with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "France has aligned itself with Saddam -- there's no other way to look at this," Perle said in a pre-recorded interview aired on France's RTL radio. For latest developments, see CNN.com's Iraq Tracker.
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