Iraq-U.N. Deal Expected to Be Accepted ( France and Germany now happy )

The United States appeared to win important French and German approval Monday for a resolution on Iraq that will confer legitimacy on the interim government taking over from the U.S.-led occupation.

U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said he expects the Security Council to approve the U.S.-British resolution on Tuesday afternoon, and council diplomats said the vote could be unanimous.

"We think this is an excellent resolution," Negroponte said. It marks "the fact that Iraq is entering into a new political phase, one where it is reasserting its full sovereignty."

The draft resolution - revised four times over the past two weeks - also marks an end to the occupation and defines the relationship between the new government and the U.S.-led multinational force. Key elements are how much authority the Iraqi leadership will have over its own armed forces and whether it will have a say in U.S.-led military operations.

A last-minute addition Monday by the United States and Britain on Iraq's "security partnership" with U.S.-led forces was the key compromise.

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said "there are a lot of improvements" and "the text is going in the right direction now."

"I think we have reached a stage where the resolution has a very good text," Germany's U.N. Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said. "My feeling is we have found a compromise."

France wanted the resolution to state clearly that Iraq's interim government will have authority over its armed forces, that Iraqi forces can refuse to take part in operations by the multinational force, and that the new government could veto "sensitive offensive operations" by the U.S.-led force.

The draft sent to the 15-member Security Council earlier Monday did not include any of these proposals. But the United States and Britain revised the draft to address the relationship between the international force that will provide security and the government that will assume power on June 30.

The text now welcomes the exchange of letters between Iraq's new prime minister and Secretary of State Colin Powell and their pledge to work together to reach agreement on "the full range fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations."

It also notes "that the government of Iraq has authority to commit Iraqi security forces to the multinational force to engage in operations with it."

Chile's U.N. Ambassador Heraldo Munoz said the U.S.-British proposal was "a good compromise."

Approval of the resolution would take debate over its contents off the agenda at the Group of Eight summit. President Bush is hosting the summit, which starts Tuesday.

The United States also is eager for approval of the resolution as the June 30 deadline for the transfer of sovereignty approaches.

The early dispute over how long the multinational force will remain appears to have been resolved.

The resolution says the interim government will have authority to ask the force to leave, but Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi indicated in a letter to Powell that the force will remain at least until an elected transitional government takes power early next year.

The new resolution asks U.N. member states and regional and international organizations "to contribute assistance to the multinational force, including military forces,"

It added language welcoming the interim government's commitment "to work towards a federal, democratic, pluralist and unified Iraq." It also reaffirmed the right of Iraqis to "exercise full authority and control over their financial and natural resources."

The Security Council's meeting began with statements from Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his special adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, who helped select the interim government that will take power on June 30.

"This interim government will now have the task of bringing the country together, and of leading it effectively during the next seven months," Annan said.

Declaring that "Iraq is not a failed state," the secretary-general urged all countries, especially Iraq's neighbors, to respond generously to the interim government's request for assistance.

Brahimi told the council that the way the relationship between the interim government and the multinational force is managed "will greatly affect the credibility of the interim government in the eyes of their people."

"An equally important and urgent measure," he said, "is the grave issue of the prisoners detained in the notorious Abu Ghraib detention center and elsewhere." The abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers has focused a spotlight on this issue.

"It would greatly help the new government if this problem were to be completely solved even before June 30," Brahimi said.

U.S. Schedules UN Vote on Iraq Resolution for Tuesday
Mon Jun 7, 2004 08:35 PM ET

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States and Britain scheduled a U.N. Security Council vote on Iraq's future for Tuesday and France, which had balked earlier, signaled its approval of the resolution.

"We are putting it to a vote on Tuesday afternoon," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said on Monday after consultations on the resolution marking the transfer of power by the American-led occupation to an Iraqi interim government.

French U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, said the "text is going in the right direction" and he was awaiting final instructions from his government.

France, backed by Germany, had submitted a controversial amendment that would have given Iraq a virtual veto over major U.S. military actions.

The United States rejected this but later amended the text to reflect U.S.-Iraqi military arrangements that call for a special committee to reach agreement on security issues, including "sensitive offensive operations."

Germany's U.N. ambassador, Gunter Pleuger, said his country accepted the compromise.

"This new paragraph meets, I would say, 90 percent of our concerns and I think we can live with that," he said.

Control of the 160,000 U.S.-led troops in Iraq was the most contentious issue in the draft resolution that will give international endorsement to the new interim Iraqi government and authorize a multinational force under American command.

PLEDGES ON SECURITY

At a special session on Sunday, the Security Council received separate letters on military arrangements from Secretary of State Powell and Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that will inform an annex to the resolution.

They pledged that the American commander and Iraqi leaders would consult on and coordinate "fundamental security and policy issues including policy on sensitive offensive operations" through a new national security committee.

But the letters do not spell out what happens in case of a disagreement, prompting France to advocate that Iraq had the right to block a major U.S. campaign.

The draft resolution also gives the interim Iraqi government the right to order U.S. troops to leave Iraq and makes clear the mandate of the multinational force would expire in January 2006 when a permanent Iraqi government is expected to take office.

The latest text also strengthened language on Iraq's sovereignty, such as Baghdad's right "to exercise full authority and control over financial and natural resources."

And it tried to accommodate Russia's request for an international conference by saying the Security Council would consider one if requested by Iraq.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, visiting Mexico City, praised the draft. "The resolution has already been modified substantially in a positive direction. We have every reason to think that this could culminate in a positive result," he told reporters.

U.N. envoy Lakhkar Brahimi, who helped shape the interim Iraqi government, told the council of his difficulties but said he thought the leadership was acceptable to most Iraqis, albeit with misgivings.

He called on the new government to reach out to critics and "resist the temptation to characterize all who have opposed the occupation as terrorists and bitter-enders."

Brahimi mentioned the importance of an interim constitution, signed in March. But there was no chance that the resolution will mention it as Iraqi Kurds are demanding. They are threatening to quit the government unless the measure endorses the autonomy granted to them these laws.

"We are not bluffing here, we are serious -- it's the right of our people," Nechirvan Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, told Reuters.

The transitional laws would remain in effect but are not mentioned in the resolution because of objections from the leading Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

In Baghdad, Allawi announced that the Kurds and other Iraqi factions had agreed to disband their militias, in a deal that effectively outlaws fighters loyal to a rebel Shi'ite cleric.

"As a result of this achievement, the vast majority of such forces in Iraq -- about 100,000 armed individuals -- will enter either civilian life or one of the state security services," the interim prime minister said in a statement.

The deal does not encompass the Mehdi Army of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who launched an anti-U.S. uprising two months ago.

An arms depot belonging to Sadr's militia exploded near a mosque in the Shi'ite town of Kufa, killing three people and wounding 12, hospital officials said. The U.S. military said its forces were not operating in the area at the time.

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