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US readies Iraq UN resolution before Bush speech
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-05-24 16:24 The United States plans to
disclose on Monday the text of a new U.N. resolution that would call for "full
sovereignty" for Iraqis, despite the presence of 130,000 U.S. troops, U.S. and
U.N officials said.
The text will be presented for the first time to ambassadors at morning
Security Council consultations, with U.S. officials having requested a delay on
another resolution that would exempt American peacekeepers from prosecution by
the International Criminal Court.
The distribution of the draft resolution, which would also ask for approval
for a U.S.-led multinational force, comes hours before U.S. President
Bush outlines a strategy for Iraq's future in a speech at the U.S. Army War
College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on Monday evening.
Bush plans to lay out in more detail the course for the remaining weeks
before the June 30 transition deadline, including highlights of the U.N. draft
resolution on a caretaker Iraqi government that has not yet been formed.
The definition of sovereignty is the most contentious issue, with the Bush
administration attempting to assure U.N. Security Council members they would not
be asked to approve an occupation under another name.
The resolution is expected to include language that would ask an interim
Iraqi government to define limitations on its powers, such as not adopting
long-term legislation before a government is elected in January. An exception,
diplomats said, would be a debt relief accord.
U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, now in Baghdad, is due to name a president, a
prime minister, two vice presidents and 26 ministers before the end of May.
But the most controversial issue is defining the duration and duties of a
U.S.-led multinational force and its relationship to an Iraqi government and
military.
France, Germany and others want a "sunset" clause that would end the mandate
of the force unless a new government requests it stay.
However, British and U.S. diplomats said they preferred a review after a
year, which is tantamount to an open-ended mandate. But the text will probably
make clear that Iraqis can ask the force to leave, U.S. diplomats said.
Another issue is whether Iraqi forces can decline a U.S.-ordered military
operation.
While an American commander would be in overall charge, Deputy Secretary of
State Richard L. Armitage told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday
that Iraqi troops have the right to "opt out" of military operations.
Germany and others have proposed a kind of Iraqi "national security council"
that would include government leaders and the U.S. Central Command to resolve
disputes on military action.
The draft is also expected to say the Iraqi government, rather than the U.S.
force, would have control over police and civilian prisons, the envoys said
after a briefing last week from U.S. and British officials.
The resolution would also state Iraq would have control over its oil
revenues. But it would keep in place an international advisory board, which
audits accounts, to assure investors and donors that their money was being spent
free of corruption, the envoys said.
Under a May 2003 Security Council resolution adopted after the fall of Saddam
Hussein, all proceeds of Iraq's oil and gas sales were deposited into a special
account called the Development Fund for Iraq, controlled by the U.S.-led
Coalition Provisional Authority.
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