Posted on 03/14/2003 8:21:00 PM PST by Koblenz
"Another nutty day at the office," muttered one senior UN official involved with Iraq issues as he arrived for work yesterday morning.
He then took a lift to the upper floors of the UN's towering headquarters. Downstairs, diplomats, UN staff and journalists swarmed over each other in a desperate hunt for titbits of intelligence.
Their motto was the one-liner uttered by a senior diplomat earlier this week: "If anyone tells you that they understand what is going on inside the Security Council, they're wrong."
In the febrile atmosphere sweeping the building the whisper that Guinea would vote against the US on the advice of its president's witch doctor provoked new excitement.
All observers awaited more informal consultations yesterday evening - and another colourful appearance by the Guinean ambassador, Mamady Traore, its current president, in the robes of his national dress.
The prospect of being spared the need to take sides in the battle between the US and Britain and France was a relief to the "undecided" nations, Guinea among them, on the council.
But they also enjoyed the irony of, having been the subject of intense wooing by the major powers for weeks, now being spurned by their suitors as no longer worth the effort. "They love you," joked one diplomat from the six countries courted so aggressively. "But then there is always the risk that they leave you later."
Britain's package of final measures to test Saddam Hussein's resolve to disarm, formally tabled late on Wednesday, was welcomed in public but privately mocked as a desperate attempt by Tony Blair to ensure his survival at home.
Its credibility suffered a new blow when it emerged that Dr Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, had indicated that it would take Iraq at least 10 days to comply with the demands.
The US, which has kept the British initiative at arm's length, further undermining its authority, was still insisting that the existing deadline next Monday can only be extended by "a couple" of days.
But Washington's and London's position, reaffirmed on Wednesday, that a vote must go ahead by the end of the week was also hastily abandoned.
An offer to drop the first of the six demands, that Saddam Hussein own up to hiding his weapons of mass destruction on Iraqi television, further muddied the waters.
German diplomats denied the existence of a new resolution drafted by Berlin which would drag out arms inspections till June. But a copy of the document was circulating widely through the building.
It contained one new proposal to help solve the Iraqi crisis which has so far surfaced nowhere else: "Free and secret elections to be carried out no later than June 1, 2004."
The antagonisms and tension born of six months of gruelling negotiations over how to deal with Baghdad have reached new heights in recent days.
Only the bad feeling over Bosnia during the 1990s, when Britain and France were lined up together against the US, could compare with the strain on diplomats now, veteran UN watchers suggested.
Observers have been speculating which way individual members of the Security Council will jump for weeks.
But one UN ambassador allied with the US and Britain, Bulgaria's Stefan Tafrov, last night hinted that it was still too early to predict how his colleagues will behave.
"It is premature to count votes," he said on what could still be the eve of decision day.
Everyone else here has done little else for weeks.
This, particularly wrt Saddam, is an oxymoron, with the emphasis on 'moron'.
We all know that the UN is a step to world socialism and the corresponding enrichment of important bureaucrats at the expense of every living soul.
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