The worst-case scenario for Irish diplomats at the UN would be to have the casting vote at the Security Council on providing the legal basis for action against Saddam, reports Conor O'Clery from New York
A the end of last week it looked as if the moment of truth was close at hand for the United Nations Security Council. After intensive diplomacy in world capitals, a draft US resolution on Iraq was finalised by the US State Department. It was given to the French at the UN on Friday and the Russians on Saturday. But the first most other senior UN diplomats knew about it was when they read leaked details in Saturday morning's New York Times. Some choked on their coffee. "That can never fly," said a member of the German mission.
The draft declared Iraq to be in "material" breach of past resolutions, and carried a threat of force if it did not return to compliance. It gave Baghdad seven days to declare fully its weapons programme, and 23 days more to verify its disclosures. It called for unrestricted access to all sites in Iraq, including off-limits palace compounds. It said UN weapons inspectors could evacuate Iraqi officials out of the country for interviews. It allowed representatives of any of the five permanent Security Council members to join an inspection team and recommend sites to be inspected. Any failure by Iraq to comply would "authorise member states to use all necessary means" to restore peace and security in the area.
On Monday, Ireland and the other nine elected members of the Security Council (Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Guinea, Mauritius, Mexico, Singapore, Norway and Syria) were invited to a briefing by the US and UK missions, held in the US mission across from UN headquarters on Manhattan's First Avenue. They hoped to see the full text of the draft, but they were to be disappointed. The briefing was an anti-climax, with "concepts" rather than documents put forward by the US deputy head of mission, ambassador James Cunningham.
For some of the diplomats there, it looked like confirmation of their "second-tier" status. Elected members serve two-year terms on the Security Council, while the permanent five (US, UK, France, China and Russia, known collectively as the P5) wield a veto on resolutions.
"The elected members bring diplomatic legitimacy because they are elected by the whole United Nations, but the five have a competitive advantage because of their permanence," said ambassador Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore, who has been leading a campaign to reform the procedures of the Security Council (which, after 57 years, are still provisional).
However, when the P5 met the next day, it was the turn of France, Russia and China to feel frustrated. Against expectations, there was again no text on the table, though the French and Russians had been given the US draft for perusal at the weekend and the full document had by then been leaked to the Washington Post.
They made clear that some clauses of the draft were not acceptable to them even for compromise discussions. One point of contention, for example: a clause allowing any member of the Security Council to nominate Iraqi officials to interview would, they said, politicise a supposedly impartial agency (the weapons inspection team) of the Security Council.
"The baby is still in the belly," said ambassador Martin Belinga Eboutou from Cameroon, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, after he took soundings the next day. The French proposed a compromise on two resolutions, the first approving more stringent inspections, the second authorising war should Iraq obstruct them. But the Americans insisted on a single resolution.
While the US pressed its hard line, Hans Blix, the man in charge of accounting for Iraq's chemical, biological and ballistic weapons, was reaching agreement with Baghdad officials in Vienna on practical arrangements for inspectors to fly to Baghdad. Iraq said they could come on October 19th to resume work for the first time in four years. On Tuesday afternoon, as soon as he heard about the Vienna agreement, US Secretary of State Colin Powell strode to the press room in the state department to announce (in time for the evening television news) that there was no "magic calendar" and inspectors should only go in when they had the authority to do their job properly, which required a new resolution, otherwise they would be "back in the same swamp".
Blix flew to New York and met the 15 members of the Security Council on Thursday. By then it was evident that the idea of returning inspectors by October 19th had stalled.
"We have not purchased air tickets yet," he said. Legally, the existing regulations allow his teams to begin work, he stated. But his own conclusion was that there should be a new resolution, quickly passed by a united Security Council so as not to lose momentum.
"It would be awkward if we were doing inspections and a new mandate with new changes in directives would arrive," he said. Also, there had been no discussion with the Iraqis about the eight contentious presidential sites, where, it is claimed, weapons facilities may exist. By now, the Americans had achieved a significant advance - few at the UN disagreed on the need for a new resolution. Iraq, however, had said it would not accept the terms of any new resolution, adding to the feeling that military action could not be avoided.
The P5 met later on Thursday to work on a new text, with the French still pushing hard for two resolutions. But some of the real action was in faraway capitals. With the US clearly willing to pay a commercial price for UN support, Russia was securing assurances about the future of its big investment in Iraqi oilfields in a post-Saddam Iraq. At the end of the week Ireland and the other nine elected members were still waiting for the P5 to work out their differences.
When a US text is ready to be voted on, Eboutou will convene a formal meeting of the Security Council and ask for a show of hands. If the required majority of nine members votes in favour, he will ask for those against. A veto from one of the permanent five would kill the resolution dead.
The Irish mission at the UN, headed by Ambassador Richard Ryan and the deputy permanent representative, Ambassador Gerard Corr, have kept the Department of Foreign Affairs informed daily, even hourly, by telephone and e-mail, of the rapidly changing situation. There has as yet been little overt lobbying by the US for Ireland's support on a new US-backed resolution, according to diplomatic sources.
Dublin backed Washington over its military action in Afghanistan, which began during Ireland's one-month council presidency in October and, in attempts to forecast the outcome of any vote, some in the US media have lumped Ireland in a pro-US bloc in the Security Council. Ireland has no difficulty with a new inspections regime agreed by the Security Council.
The worst-case scenario for Ireland would be to have the casting vote on providing the legal basis for collective action by the international community, at a time when a clear majority in the Republic - 59 per cent to 29 per cent, according to a recent Irish Times poll - opposes any UN authority for action. This would require a Cabinet decision in Dublin. The best-case scenario is a unified resolution, with all members (probably excluding Syria), voting for a tougher inspections regime.
In a debate on terrorism at the Security Council yesterday, Ryan made the point: "A year after the barbarism of September 11th we need to always recall that the fabric of laws and codes which we have painstakingly built up over recent decades in the United Nations remains all too fragile and vulnerable. Rights lost in any country are not easily restored; voices stifled can be muted, but at a great cost; values endangered are our common loss."