By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 2003 (IPS)

Mindful of the deadly consequences of an impending U.S. war against Iraq, most members of the United Nations Security Council have made it clear that they want a peaceful end to the dispute over Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction.

”The majority of the Council is in favour of disarming Iraq peacefully and of more time for inspections,” French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of a Security Council meeting.

”The inspections started just two months ago. They should continue.”

The French ambassador welcomed the U.S. decision to present a report next week to the Security Council, which the administration of President George W. Bush says will prove that Iraq possesses the outlawed weapons. ”It’s useful that inspectors get this information,” said de la Sabliere.

But Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov was more sceptical. The U.S. report, to be delivered by Secretary of State Colin Powell Feb. 5, has to be ”undeniable and convincing”, he said.

The ongoing inspections ”are useful, efficient, and have to be continued”, Lavrov added.

Syrian envoy Mikhail Wehbe told reporters that 10 Council members in the closed-door meeting voiced their support for the move to give inspectors ”more time” for inspections.

Dismissing the U.S. charge that Iraq was already in ”material breach” of resolution 1441, which in November sent the inspectors back into Iraq after they were expelled by President Saddam Hussein in 1998, Wehbe recalled that ”neither Hans Blix nor Mohammed El-Baradei, the chief U.N. inspectors, have said anything about material breach”.

On Monday, the inspectors gave their first progress reports to the Council. While El-Baradei said inspectors had found no trace that Iraq continues to develop nuclear weapons, Blix complained that Hussein was cooperating only minimally with the team of 260 inspectors.

Describing the U.S. policy on Iraq as destructive, the Syrian ambassador, who represents the only Arab nation currently sitting in the Security Council, said, ”Everybody in the (Middle East) region is saying no to war.”

Other non-permanent members of the Council also rejected the U.S. stance on inspections.

”I think the general view is that the inspections should be given a chance,” said Pakistan’s Ambassador Munir Akram, whose country is on the frontlines of the U.S. ”war on terrorism”.

”I do not wish to say how long” they should last, he added.

Iraqi cooperation was ”unsatisfactory”, added Mexican envoy Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, but the inspectors’ request for more time must be considered in a ”positive manner”, he said.

Last November, when the United States and France were locked in a diplomatic battle over the wording of resolution 1441, Mexico stood at a distance from its powerful northern neighbour.

Many diplomats on Wednesday also noted that the resolution sets no time limit for inspections.

Noting that ”hundreds of inspections have been carried out since November”, German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger, who is president of the Council in February, urged the Council to let the inspections continue.

”Never before were the inspectors so well equipped,” he said. ”Let us not put away the investment, which we recently created.”

But U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte told reporters, ”The diplomatic window is closing. The time for decision-making is fast approaching. The situation is urgent. It is pressing.”

Asked why the inspectors have so far failed to find the weapons that U.S. officials claim are in Iraq, Negroponte said, ”It’s not the job of inspectors to go under every rock in Iraq.”

”The burden of proof is definitely on Iraq itself, which has to fully and completely declare its weapons holdings and, secondly, to cooperate unconditionally, immediately and proactively with inspectors.”

On Tuesday, Bush spoke with German President Gerald Schroeder about next week’s briefing. Germany has voiced its opposition to war against Iraq more strongly than any other western nation.

The U.S. president is also scheduled to meet U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday and Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday.

Negroponte said while next week’s briefing will reveal U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weaponry, it may also contain proof of U.S. claims that Iraq has links to terrorist groups, including al-Qaida.

A kilometre away from the U.N. building at Times Square, thousands of Americans gathered to echo the views of members of the Security Council while chanting: ”No blood for oil. Not in our name.”

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