The United States and Britain walked away from the United Nations yesterday, withdrawing their bid for a second resolution, abandoning their pursuit of security council support for war against Iraq and sparking acrimonious exchanges with France and Russia.
Having failed to secure the necessary nine votes, the co-sponsors of the resolution - Britain, the US and Spain - decided not to seek a vote and vowed to attack Iraq without council support if Saddam Hussein fails to disarm, leaving the UN in a state of chaos.
[...]
As the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, questioned the legitimacy of an attack without council backing, Washington and London explicitly blamed France for the collapse of the process, a charge Paris labelled "absurd."
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, breaking weeks of silence, labelled military action without UN backing "a mistake", while his foreign minister called it "illegal."
[...]
Although Russia and China were opposed to the resolution, and the so-called "middle six" uncommitted nations had not been won over, the US and UK singled out France for blame.[France was to blame, in point of fact! We had the 10 votes, but with the promised French veto of anything there was no point!--Jen]
France struck back, insisting that Britain, the US and Spain had withdrawn the resolution because the majority of the council was opposed to it.[They've got to know this is a bold-faced lie!--J.T.]
Paris dismissed criticisms in public, but privately French officials were bitter at what they saw as a deliberate distortion of France's position in the search for a scapegoat.[You don't need a scapegoat, when you've got the perpetrator, mes amis!--ed.]
[...]
In Moscow, Mr Putin said a war without UN approval "would be fraught with the gravest consequences, will result in casualties and destabilise the international situation in general ... We stand for resolving the problem exclusively through peaceful means. Any other option would be a mistake."[Still the same old Soviets:"No one can use military force, except for us."--J.]
The Kremlin's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, said: "The use of force against Iraq, especially with reference to previous resolutions of the UN security council, has no legal grounds."
[We're not in court, Igor!]
In direct contradiction of the advice given by the British attorney general to Downing Street yesterday, he said resolution 1441 "clearly states the security council will convene immediately if the need to ensure the complete observance of the existing resolutions arises."
[No, I don't think 1441 does say that or we would've heard by now.]
[...]
Russia's parliamentary speaker, Gennady Seleznyov, said an attack would cause the world to consider that "the US is a terrorist state that can only be dealt with in the Hague tribunal".
[Thank God we didn't sign that dreadful ICC document! And we're not subject to jurisdiction by the Hague and never will be!] US officials said Moscow had declined a Pentagon offer to coordinate postwar issues such as humanitarian aid.
[Don't forget those oil contracts you're going to miss out on, either, Russkis!]
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