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Bush softens stand

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington OCT. 22. The United States has formally circulated a revised draft at the United Nations on the new Iraq resolution. The Bush administration, in an effort to come to terms with serious objections in the Security Council, has left out an explicit authorisation on the use of force. But concerns do remain.

The new draft resolution was circulated at a meeting of the five Permanent Council members; and the ambassadors are due to meet again on Tuesday in New York to proceed with whatever instructions they had received from their capitals. Washington is confident that its new resolution will find acceptance. The key attention is on France, which has taken a tough stance on any use force against Iraq. Paris has been maintaining for the last five weeks that it is for two resolutions, one on the use of force coming only after weapons inspectors reported to the Council that the mission had failed on account of Iraq going back on the terms. Washington's decision to step back on the explicit authorisation over the use of force does not mean that the Republican administration is subscribing to the French idea. Rather, the U.S. is now agreeable to a two-phase process but within a single resolution. And this is where some of the persisting concerns are. Under the new scheme of things, the draft apparently continues to say that Iraq is in "material breach'' of U.N. resolutions, a term that the United States could use later for a military response. Further, key diplomats at the world body are worried about persistent U.S. language saying that Iraq had been warned of "serious consequences''. But there are things that the Bush administration has done over and beyond the dropping of explicit language on the use of force. And these have been taken note of in a positive manner.

It includes dropping of a demand for military units to accompany weapons inspectors. The U.S. also dropped an earlier insistence that the Permanent Five could send their own weapons inspections personnel. Meanwhile, the President, George W. Bush, has said that he will try diplomacy "one more time'' and seemed to back away from an impression that he and his administration are bent upon driving the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, out of power. "We don't believe he's going to change. However, if he were to meet all conditions of the United Nations... that in itself would signal that the regime has changed'', the President said. "We've tried diplomacy. We're trying it one more time'', he said.

Mr. Bush also drew a distinction between Iraq and North Korea, both of whom he had referred early this year as being members of the so-called axis of evil. "What makes him (Saddam Hussein) even more unique is the fact that he's actually gassed his own people."

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