By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- Reports from the two chief U.N. weapons inspectors March 7 have failed to resolve the fundamental differences among the veto-holding members of the Security Council about Iraqi disarmament.

The United Kingdom, United States and Spain introduced an amendment to the draft resolution on Iraq that they put forward last week that would set March 17 as a deadline for Iraqi compliance, but France rejected the compromise before the public ministerial-level meeting of the 15-nation council had even adjourned.

China and Russia, two other permanent members of the council with veto power, as well as elected members Syria and Germany, said they would not accept any further resolutions. Bulgaria said it would support the amended resolution. The other six elected members of the council have urged the permanent members to find a compromise.

After the meeting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that "there is a fundamental difference of opinion as to what Iraq is doing, and I think a number of us tried to make the case today that Iraq still is not fully complying, unconditionally complying, immediately complying."

"That was the standard of [Security Council Resolution] 1441. We knew what we were doing when we passed that resolution. It does not take a long time to comply. Just get on with it. Don't keep confusing the world. Don't keep handing out little bits of information. Don't keep grudgingly responding to what the inspectors ask for and what they need," Powell told journalists outside the council.

Powell also rejected a proposal made by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin that the council meet at the level of heads of state and government next week, saying that he didn't see "a particular need" for such a meeting.

"There have only been two such high level meetings in recent history, primarily for ceremonial purposes," the secretary said. "I think we have all had good opportunity over the last month to express our views openly and candidly with each other here in the council, at the ministerial level, and our heads of state and government are in constant touch with each other. They have a solid understanding of each others' positions," Powell said.

"Iraq knows what it is supposed to do. It was made clear in 1441. There are those of us who believe, therefore, that it is time to deal with that basic reality that Iraq is not complying," the secretary said. "Others believe in continuing the inspections. But they never quite say how long. For months? How many months? For what purpose, with what additional inspectors?

"Can anyone commit to me and guarantee the international community that we will achieve disarmament just with more inspections without a fundamental change on the part of Iraq to come into full compliance and full cooperation?"

The amendment to the allies' resolution, which was presented by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, would set a specific date of March 17 for Iraq to give the inspectors all the weapons, delivery, support systems and structures, as well as all information regarding the destruction of such items, for its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

The original draft resolution submitted February 24 recalls that council resolution 1441, passed unanimously in November 2002, declared Iraq had been and remained in material breach of its disarmament obligations and gave Iraq "a final opportunity to comply."

The new draft says that "Iraq will have failed to take the final opportunity afforded by resolution 1441 unless on or before March 17, 2003, the council concludes that Iraq has demonstrated full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation with its disarmament obligations."

Powell said that "sometime next week that resolution ought to be brought to the council for a vote and let's see where everyone is. This just can't continue on and on and on."

In their remarks to the council, both Powell and Straw stressed that the reason there has been any Iraqi compliance at all is because of the large number of U.S. and U.K. forces in the region, not diplomatic pressure.

Addressing comments made by the French foreign minister, Straw said that "that diplomatic pressure was there every day for 12 years. ... Let us be blunt. It is the presence of over 200,000 United States and United Kingdom young men and young women ready to lay down their lives" that has brought the regime of Saddam Hussein to cooperate with the inspectors.

"Dr. Blix told us that there has been an acceleration of Iraqi cooperation in recent weeks," the U.K. foreign secretary said. "But there is all the difference in the world between cooperation extracted by threat and cooperation freely given."

"If the pressure on Saddam Hussein eases, cooperation will disappear. The fact is that he has given up only what he can get away with," Straw said. "... Saddam then trickles out concessions, calibrated exquisitely to the pressure he is under, and in a cynical attempt to divide the council."

Powell said that "the inspectors have their jobs to do. We have put out powerful resolutions, expressed political determination, but it is also the presence of military force that is causing Iraqi compliance. We have to keep that pressure up."

"We have got to let them know it is going to come to a head in the very near future," Powell said.

Even before Powell and Straw spoke, Villepin said that "we cannot accept an ultimatum as long as inspectors are reporting cooperation." Outside the council he continued saying that "there is the idea of an ultimatum, the 17th of March. This is the logic of war. We don't accept this logic."

The report from Hans Blix, executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), updated his written report to the council of a week ago. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), presented the agency's quarterly report, as required under resolution 1284.

Blix said "One can hardly avoid the impression that, after a period of somewhat reluctant cooperation, there has been an acceleration of initiatives from the Iraqi side since the end of January."

"But the value of these measures must be soberly judged by how many question marks they actually succeed in straightening out," he said. "This is not clear."

He gave the council a list of 29 clusters of unresolved disarmament issues, and said that UNMOVIC would have a draft work plan on those issues ready by the end of the month.

With "proactive Iraqi cooperation" and continued outside pressure "it would not take years, nor weeks, but months" to resolve those remaining disarmament tasks, Blix said.

Blix attributed the "relatively few difficulties" in conducting private interviews with seven Iraqi scientists to "strong outside pressure." But he added "that is not to say that the operation of inspections is free from frictions, but at this juncture we are able to perform professional no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase aerial surveillance."

"It was a disappointment that Iraq's Declaration of 7 December did not bring new documentary evidence," he said. "I hope that efforts in this respect, including the appointment of a governmental commission, will give significant results."

"Iraq, with a highly developed administrative system, should be able to provide more documentary evidence about its proscribed weapons programs," Blix said. "Only a few new such documents have come to light so far and been handed over since we began inspections."

The UNMOVIC chief noted that lately Iraq has provided the names of people who took part in the various phases of the unilateral destruction of biological and chemical weapons in 1991. He suggested, however, that if Iraq had such detailed information on those who took part, then "surely there must also remain records regarding the quantities and other data concerning the various items destroyed."

If the witnesses are available, he added, it is even more important to conduct interviews in ways and locations outside of the reach of Iraqi "minders" and eavesdropping equipment. Blix said that UNSCOM will soon ask for interviews to be held outside of Iraq.

The papers Iraq recently provided on anthrax, VX, and missiles, "have been found to restate what Iraq already has declared, and some will require further study and discussion," he said.

Blix said that the inspectors have found no evidence yet of underground facilities or mobile laboratories for chemical and biological weapons, but work is continuing and UNSCOM is trying to develop ways to conduct random checks of ground transportation.

Since March 1, there have been 24 Al Samoud 2 missiles, 2 combat warheads, 1 launcher and 5 engines destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision. The legality of the Al Fatah missile is still under review, Blix said.

IAEA Director ElBaradei said that "after three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq," but the agency will continue inspections.

IAEA inspectors have found no indications of resumed nuclear activities in buildings that satellite imagery showed as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998 or at any of the 141 sites inspected, he said.

ElBaradei said that IAEA investigators found that documents showing Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger in recent years were false and there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.

On the aluminum tubes Iraq was reportedly trying to import, he said that Iraq provided credible documents showing that the tubes were to be used for rocket development. In addition, "it was highly unlikely that Iraq could have achieved the considerable re-design needed to use them in a revived centrifuge program," ElBaradei said.

While IAEA is still reviewing issues related to magnets and magnet production, he said that there is no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in a centrifuge enrichment program. But the training and experience Iraq acquired before 1991 makes it likely that Iraq possesses the expertise to manufacture high-strength permanent magnets suitable for use in enrichment centrifuges.

In the past weeks, Iraq has accelerated its pace of cooperation, ElBaradei said, but IAEA intends to request interviews in another country with scientists and others involved in nuclear programs.

Powell said that despite some progress, the reports were "a catalog still of non-cooperation."

"If Iraq genuinely wanted to disarm, we would not have to be worrying about setting up means of looking for mobile biological units or any units of that kind. They would be presented to us. We would not need an extensive program to search for and look for underground facilities that we know exist," the secretary said.

"The very fact we must make these requests seems to me to show that Iraq is still not cooperating," Powell said.

The Security Council must not walk away from its responsibilities, Powell said.

"We must not find ourselves here this coming November with the pressure removed and with Iraq once again marching down the merry path to weapons of mass destruction, threatening the region, threatening the world."

"If we fail to meet our responsibilities, the credibility of this council and its ability to deal with all the critical challenges we face will suffer," he said.