Britain has set out six tough new conditions they say Iraqi President Saddam Hussein must meet in order to avoid being attacked.
With Britain and the US struggling to get the nine votes needed at the UN Security Council to get a new resolution authorising military action, today's move is an attempt to win over six wavering nations on the 15-member Council.
An amended resolution, expected to be formally presented later today, seems certain to be vetoed by France, Russia and possibly China but the plans for a vote on Friday have not been abandoned.
President Bush has vowed to attack without UN backing but British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose political future is at stake, would find it extremely difficult to go along with widespread dissent but public and within his party. But Washington's patience is wearing thin.
- Make a televised appearance announcing full disarmament
- Iraq should allow 30 of its scientists to be interviewed outside the country with their families in tow
- surrender stocks of anthrax and other biological and chemical agents or produce documents to demonstrate what happened to them
- destroy banned missiles
- account for unmanned aerial vehicles
- promise to hand over all mobile bio-production laboratories for destruction.Diplomats internationally, say the list of conditions are be next to impossible for Saddam to accept without fatally weakening the basis of his power.
The humiliating demand for a televised address is likely to be too much for Saddam, prompting anti-war members of Blair's Labour Party to ask if his wish-list was little short of a declaration of war.
Agencies