The tough wording and the implied threat of military action - has forced U.S. diplomats into overdrive as they attempt to sway the three skeptical veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council: Russia, China and France.

Britain has agreed to the stiff terms and a British diplomat accompanied U.S. Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who was deployed to Paris on Thursday and was to go on to Moscow for similar talks on Saturday.

"We are a long way from getting an agreement but we are working hard," Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington.

President Bush said action must come quickly. "I'm willing to give peace a chance to work. I want the United Nations to work," the president said Friday at a Republican fund-raiser in Denver.

"Now is the time," he said. "For the sake of your children's future we must make sure this madman never has the capacity to hurt us with a nuclear weapon, or to use the stockpiles of anthrax that we know he has, or VX, the biological weapons which he possesses."

The U.S. resolution accuses Iraq of being in "material breach" of previous U.N. resolutions, which have demanded that Iraq cooperate with weapons inspectors and disarm.

It says that failure to comply with the latest resolution would put Baghdad in further "material breach."

The term is a hot button in the U.N. lexicon because it would force the Security Council to consider further action against Iraq. It also could be viewed as a trigger for military action.

The resolution would:

* Require U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to notify Iraq about the resolution. Baghdad would have seven days to decide if it accepts the terms.

* Demand that Iraq grant full, unfettered access to all sites, including Saddam Hussein's presidential sites, which had previously been subject to special treatment.

* Require Baghdad to fully disclose all of its weapons programs and provide access to all officials the U.N. inspectors wish to interview.

RESOLUTION DELAYS

The United States had hoped to push through the resolution by Monday when chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix is scheduled to meet with Iraqi experts in Vienna to finalize plans for the inspectors' return.

But interagency wrangling in Washington and the continued opposition of some allies have delayed a draft from reaching the Security Council, diplomats said.

"We're conducting intensive negotiations with other members of the Security Council, including consultations on possible texts with the United Kingdom," Lynn Cassell, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement.

In addition to persuading the veto-holding members of the Security Council to either support or abstain from voting on the resolution, the United States would need a total of nine favorable votes from the 15-member council.

Powell stressed that any resolution "must determine what consequences" there will be for Iraq if it fails to comply.

But Russia, France and Arab countries don't want a resolution threatening force before inspectors can get back inside Iraq.

Iraq announced last week that inspectors could return unconditionally nearly four years after they were barred from carrying out their work in the country.

The Iraqi move was a surprise response to Bush's speech to the United Nations earlier this month in which he warned Iraq to follow through with resolutions or face the consequences.

FRENCH WARINESS

French President Jacques Chirac told Bush in a telephone conversation Friday that France more than ever wanted a two-step strategy with wide U.N. backing on disarming Iraq, according to Chirac's spokeswoman, Catherine Colanna.

"This is the view of the majority of the international community, given the seriousness of the decisions to be taken and their consequences," Colonna said.

France has proposed that the United Nations Security Council pass two resolutions on Iraq, one on readmitting arms inspectors and a second one spelling out the consequences if Baghdad does not let the inspectors work freely.

Chirac discussed the proposal Thursday with Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji in Paris and reiterated France's opposition to a resolution that would threaten force up-front, Colonna said.

For his part, Zhu said Friday that Beijing wanted Baghdad to comply with U.N. disarmament resolutions without restriction. "At the same time, we have to respect Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said.

(China Daily September 28, 2002)