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At this point, most intelligent people realize that France, and its minions, would never vote for military action. Never. Certainly not one led by the Americans and British.

Read the new Brit resolution carefully. It does not specifically authorize military force. The French could vote in favor of it, or even abstain, and not break a pledge.

The U.S. and Britain have set a very, very neat trap. All the new resolution does is set a deadline without specifying consequences. Whoever votes against it could legitimately be accused of favoring indefinite inspections. And they can't defend the vote on the grounds that it authorizes force because it does not.

But once they vote it down, they've given the U.S. and Britain a great excuse to say that the S.C. has been unreasonable, and won't set deadlines.

I've read the new resolution and the trap is even more neat than that.

If it passes, the Council must vote before March 17th that Iraq is in compliance or else it is deemed to have failed to have taken its final chance to comply.

And we'll wield the veto vote then.

Read the new Brit resolution carefully. It does not specifically authorize military force. The French could vote in favor of it, or even abstain, and not break a pledge.

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France and others have chosen to ignore resolution 1441 and its intent even after they voted for it. they have chosen to ignore the evidence that Colin Powell gave on feb 5 proving the iraqi deceptions. .. it's not a stretch for France to ignore the wording of the new resolution and vote against it even if it just restates the obvious.

The bottom-line is that France wants Saddam to stay in power at all costs. Even the cost of disarmament of Iraq.