International solidarity against a US-British resolution that would trigger war against Iraq began to break down yesterday when three key members of the United Nations security council showed the first signs of wobbling.
As the security council met in New York to discuss the second resolution, the US and Britain relentlessly piled the pressure on the handful of countries that hold the key to peace or war.
The resolution is desperately needed by Tony Blair, who is risking his premiership on securing a UN mandate for military action, and also by the Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, who was closeted in talks with Blair last night in Madrid.
Aznar is confronted by one of the most sceptical publics in Europe.
With so much at stake, the US and Britain are embarked on one of the biggest diplomatic squeezes since the UN was formed after the second world war.
The vote is pencilled in for the week beginning March 10.
The US and Britain, so far supported by only Spain and Bulgaria among the 15 council members, are engaged in a two-pronged push: to win the support of at least five of the six countries in the middle -Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan — and to prevent France, Russia and China using their vetoes.
Angola, Mexico and Pakistan showed signs of buckling when each of their governments issued statements indicating a softening of their previous opposition to the war option.
The Foreign Office minister Lady Amos pressed the US-British line at a meeting with the Angolan president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who also received phone calls from the President George Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, the secretary of state, Colin Powell, and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.
Although the Angolan government officially denied that there was any change, its foreign minister, Joa Miranda, adopted a noticeably more hawkish tone. Pointing out that Luanda clinched peace via a 27-year civil war, he said: ”Angola believes it is possible to wage war to achieve world peace.”
The Mexican president, Vicente Fox, who has been seeking concessions from the US on trade and emigration, also adopted a different tone. He urged the total disarmament of Iraq without the addition of his previously routine phrase ”by peaceful means”.
Christina Rocca, a US assistant secretary of state, arrived in Islamabad to try to win Pakistan’s vote and will be encouraged that, after strident opposition to a war against Iraq, President Pervez Musharraf suggested that the next report to the security council by the UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, might yet encourage him to vote for the second resolution.
Iraq is assuming the worst and preparing for war. US intelligence reported an Iraqi Republican Guard division retreating from an exposed position at Mosul in the north and regrouping in Tikrit, the stronghold of Saddam Hussein. It suggests that Iraq is planning to try to hold its more southerly urban areas, primarily Baghdad, Tikrit and Basra.
With time running out, Iraq is poised to make another concession to try to ward off invasion. It told Egypt that it would begin destruction tomorrow of the Samoud missiles declared illegal by Blix.
Bush has already discounted the concession. Predicting their destruction, he said: ”The only question at hand is total, complete disarmament, which he is refusing to do.”
Blix, in a leak of a written report due to be handed to the security council tomorrow, concurs with Bush by saying ”the results in terms of disarmament have been very limited so far”.
Blair redoubled his diplomatic drive to win support for the second UN resolution after telling the cabinet he would not be deflected from his commitment to disarm President Saddam by the scale of Wednesday’s 121-vote Labour rebellion.
With rebel MPs warning that a divided Labour government cannot commit troops to battle — and repeat the errors of the Suez invasion of 1956 — John Reid, the Labour chairman, tried to assure anxious delegates at the party’s Welsh conference yesterday that Labour was right to engage in global intervention.
”The philosophical basis for democratic socialism is that no man or woman is an island unto themselves,” said Dr Reid, who added: ”What unites us more than anything is our commitment to the United Nations.”
Aznar too was showing signs of nervousness. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal he suggested that the US would be better able to win over opinion if it were to deploy Powell more and muzzle the more hawkish defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
France, which is trying to avoid a decision whether or not to use its veto, is directing its efforts at trying to ensure the second resolution does not get put to a vote.
A small but increasingly vocal group of Jacques Chirac’s MPs have urged him against using the veto, arguing that it could gravely damage France’s relations with the US and undermine the security council if Bush then ignored it. – Guardian Unlimited Â