US warns France over Iraq

The United States fired a diplomatic warning shot across France's bows yesterday in its struggle to win United Nations backing for a war against Iraq.

After France led a new initiative to put off a conflict, the US ambassador to Paris said his country would consider "very unfriendly" any French veto in the United Nations of a new US-British resolution designed to authorise military action.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair weighed in on Washington's side, saying it was "absurd" to think UN inspectors could find banned arms without Iraq's full cooperation. France, Russia and Germany want to give them at least four more months.

But other members of the decision-making UN Security Council expressed scepticism over the resolution, clouding Washington's hopes it will pass by mid-March. Military analysts say the desert heat will make conflict much tougher after that.

Leaders of the developing world told the United States yesterday to give peace a chance in Iraq and UN Security Council members among them said they were in no rush to back a resolution that could lead to war.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad rounded off a two-day summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Malaysia characterised by strident anti-war rhetoric and heavy criticism of US domineering foreign policy.

"We are against war whether it's multilateral or unilateral, but of course we are also committed to the United Nations," he said, stressing the world body should not be dominated by one power "however benign".

And just as Washington's fortunes brightened on another front, with Ankara preparing a vote to let US troops deploy for a possible invasion of Iraq from the north, a new row broke out over the role of Turkey's troops in any conflict.

For the resolution - which declares that Iraq has squandered its "final opportunity" to disarm - to pass, nine of the 15 members of the Security Council need to vote in favour with no veto from any of the five permanent members.

Apart from the United States and Britain, these are France, Russia and China. Both Russia and China, which also support the proposal to give the inspectors more time, resisted US lobbying yesterday.

Currently four Security Council members say they are in favour of military action if Iraq fails to disarm soon, with six favouring more time for weapons inspections and five undecided.

In a sign that approval hangs in the balance, US President George W. Bush said he hoped for it but it was not essential.

Amid the diplomatic wrangling, ordinary people across the world have sought to prevent hostilities themselves.

Peace activists held up trains carrying US military equipment across Italy yesterday and threatened to march on a major US base. In Baghdad, Spanish activists took over Madrid's empty embassy to protest against its backing for war.

Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said Iraq had reported finding documents dealing with the disposal of weapons of mass destruction and a bomb containing liquid in an area where Baghdad was known to have disposed of biological weapons.

Inspectors have been asking Iraq for evidence that it unilaterally destroyed some of the banned weapons that have not been accounted for so far. Blix said the new disclosures were "positive" and needed to be explored further.

CBS News reported from the United States that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had indicated in an interview with its news anchor Dan Rather that he would not comply with a UN order to destroy its al-Samoud missiles by March 1 because they exceed the permitted maximum range.

But Saddam's top scientific adviser, General Amer al-Saadi, told reporters: "It is still under consideration."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Saddam appeared to be behaving true to form. "...what he does is dribble out concessions, first of all refusing inspections and then in the light of pressure accepting them," he said.

Another allegation came from Kuwait's interior minister, who accused Saddam of backing "terrorist" acts in Kuwait, which has witnessed a series of attacks on Americans.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait triggered the 1991 Gulf War, and Washington is likely to seize on the minister's comments as yet another reason to resort to force.

The US military said warplanes taking part in US-British patrols over a "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq had attacked a mobile anti-aircraft missile system near Basra.

Strikes against air defence, radar and communications systems in the two "no-fly" zones set up after the Gulf War have increased sharply in recent months as nearly 200,000 US and British troops mass in the region for a possible new war.

The Turkish government sent parliament a request yesterday to open the country's bases to US troops in a vote expected to take place on Thursday.

Turkish officials say that despite the plans for a vote, outstanding issues remain in long-running talks with Washington on a multi-billion dollar aid package and the role the Turkish army could play in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq that presently enjoys broad autonomy outside of Baghdad's control.

Turkey, while insisting it will not fight in any war on Iraq, fears a breakaway Kurdish state could emerge, reigniting armed Kurdish separatism in the Turkish southeast.

The Kurds' parliament in northern Iraq urged Washington to prevent an influx of Turkish troops if US-led forces invade.

"We asked America to use its influence to keep regional forces from entering our area, because we are capable of protecting our own borders," the head of the Kurdish assembly, Kamal Abdelkarim Fouad, told reporters.