Global Policy Forum

By Robin Wright and Maggie Farley

Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix is expected to report to the U.N. Security Council on Friday that Saddam Hussein's regime is not fully complying on disarmament, U.N. diplomats say, a finding the Bush administration is counting on to help convince reluctant allies that they should quickly pass a resolution allowing military intervention in Iraq.

In a bid to increase the pressure, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will confront the foreign ministers of France, Germany and other Security Council members at the U.N. about whether they intend to let Baghdad "off the hook," he told Congress on Wednesday.

"This is the question I will put to them Friday," Powell told the House International Relations Committee. "We are reaching a moment of truth as to whether or not this matter will be resolved peacefully or will be resolved by military conflict." Powell and his counterparts are taking the unusual step of attending the Blix session because of the growing stakes involved — and the growing transatlantic tensions.

Those frictions persisted Wednesday. At NATO headquarters in Brussels, the United States faced another setback in its efforts to get the Atlantic alliance to guarantee Turkey's protection in the event of an Iraq war. NATO failed to agree on a compromise proposal that would shift the issue from specific contingency planning in the event of war to the more general issue of protecting Turkey.

The U.S. case at the United Nations on Friday may get a boost from the conclusions of a team of international missile experts, who told Blix this week that an ongoing Iraqi missile program violates U.N. restrictions. Based on repeated tests, the Al-Samoud 2 missile exceeds the 90-mile limit imposed by the United Nations by about 25 miles, which would make it more than a defensive weapon, the experts concluded. Blix is likely to point to the missile violation in his report Friday.

Iraq will not destroy the missiles, Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Douri, countered Wednesday. The range discrepancy is attributable to the fact that the missiles weren't weighted during tests with payload guidance systems and fuel that would have limited their range, he said.

Behind the scenes, the United States has been pressing the case for a tough report from Blix. National security advisor Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced trip Tuesday to see Blix in New York, where she urged him to underscore Iraq's failures to meet several obligations outlined in numerous U.N. resolutions, U.S. officials said. But the United States still faces an uphill battle in making its case, U.S. and U.N. officials said Wednesday.

Blix will also report that Iraq has increased its cooperation with inspectors in the past week by allowing spy-plane overflights, offering to let the monitors drill for soil samples at locations where they say chemical and biological weapons were destroyed and allowing a few private interviews with scientists. But he has also said he needs more substantial cooperation for inspections to be effective.

Iraq's new concessions, which Blix previewed to the inspection body's board of commissioners Wednesday, will provide fodder for the effort by France, Germany, Russia and China to allow more time for more intrusive inspections as an alternative to war. The gap may not be bridged during the critical Security Council session, European diplomats predicted.

Alarmed by the U.S. deadlock with European allies, President Bush strategized with his national security team Wednesday on how to prevent a protracted debate over the next move on Iraq. The United States is working on a new U.N. resolution to introduce as early as next week to counter the effort to prolong inspections.

Further North Atlantic Treaty Organization talks are expected this afternoon, but France said its opposition to sending Patriot missile batteries and other items to Turkey had not changed. President Jacques Chirac is balking at any NATO agreement that deals with military intervention in Iraq before an agreement at the United Nations on what should happen next, French officials said Wednesday. Within the 19-member alliance, Germany and Belgium side with France.

The White House blasted the three nations Wednesday. "What you really have is a case where Germany, France and Belgium to varying degrees are isolating themselves from Europe," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

But U.S. officials expressed optimism Wednesday that these tensions will ease. In an interview with The Times, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage predicted that despite the "rocky patch" with Europe, the alliance would "get through this," possibly this week.

Public and editorial opinion in Europe has begun to shift, stressing the importance of the transatlantic alliance, Armitage said. The United States detects a growing will to "calm" the situation, he said.

In the end, however, resolution of the NATO flap may depend on what happens in the Security Council debate on Iraq. In addition to the Blix session Friday, the United States is trying to organize separate meetings among foreign ministers of the five permanent Security Council members: the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China, U.N. officials said Wednesday.

Powell hopes to persuade allies to "face the reality" that additional inspectors and more time will make no significant difference in getting Iraq to comply with its obligations dating back to the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, U.S. officials say.

Powell will tell the veto-wielding members that it is time to take a stand. "If Iraq doesn't comply, military conflict is going to happen," a senior State Department official said Wednesday. The members of the Security Council, he said, "have to decide if they want to be with it [a coalition confronting Iraq] or not.... There's nothing that focuses the mind like something hanging over you."

Washington favors a resolution that concludes that Iraq has not and will not cooperate with the United Nations, is in final material breach and must face "serious consequences."

Britain may distribute the draft language next week. And Spain, a staunch supporter of U.S. policy on Iraq and currently a Security Council member, is playing a key role in trying to win backing for a resolution authorizing military intervention.

The U.S. has already concluded that Germany and Syria will probably vote against any new U.S. resolution declaring Iraq in final material breach and condoning the use of force. But Washington is still counting on Powell to persuade France, Russia and China to at least abstain rather than use their vetoes. A resolution would then probably pass by a narrow margin, U.S. officials say.

Powell downplayed the long-term damage being done to the alliance by the dispute. "We liberated France, and we freed Germany as well from its dictatorial leadership so that they could be free, independent thinking nations," he said.

"They are democracies. They have a right to determine what their decisions will be," he told the House committee. "In the heat of debate and argument, I don't think we should throw out all the past."

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