NEW YORK: The majority of 36 nations speaking in a two-day open debate on Iraq at the UN Security Council yesterday supported bolstering the weapons inspections in Iraq by the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and opposed the use of military force.
Echoing the sentiments of most of the 26 countries who made their case on Tuesday, they noted Iraq's cooperation with the UN inspectors and urged that the inspectors should be given more time, with force used only as a last resort.
Several speakers also voiced concern about the unknown consequences for the region, particularly the humanitarian aspect of a military conflict, and urged Iraq to cooperate fully and unconditionally with the UN inspectors to avoid war.
The open meeting had been requested by the Non-Aligned Movement to give the wider UN membership an opportunity to express their views.
Iraq urged the Security Council to heed the voice of millions of anti-war protesters around the world and reject US demands to disarm it by force.
Authorising a military attack would be "a failure of the international system as a whole" and "undermine the credibility of the Security Council," the Iraqi ambassador to the UN, Mr Mohammed al-Douri, told the UN.
He accused the US of trying to get rid of President Saddam Hussein "and impose the American hegemony on the region and its resources as a first step toward world domination through the use of force".
He concluded by calling upon the world to heed the call of the millions who "rejected any aggression or threat of war against Iraq."
"The state of Qatar supports all efforts to achieve a peaceful solution that would save Iraq and its population the devastation of a new war since Iraq has suffered enough from a series of wars," the Qatari ambassador, Mr Nassir al-Nasser, said.
The Iranian ambassador, Mr Javad Zarif, warned the council that "extremism stands to gain enormously from an uncalculated adventure in Iraq," and the Egyptian ambassador, Mr Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said war would be disastrous for the entire region.
Australia and Japan supported the US and Britain in seeking a quick new Security Council resolution to confront Iraq.
"The council should move quickly to consider a further resolution that deals decisively with Iraq's failure to comply," said the Australian ambassador, Mr John Dauth.
"We cannot allow a tyrant to evade council decisions."
The South African ambassador, Mr Dumisani Kumalo, who requested the meeting in the name of the non-aligned nations group, said it would be "an admission of failure" by the council to authorise war before the inspections process was exhausted.
He noted that the arms inspectors, who began work on November 27th, "have been at full operational strength for only two weeks".
Mr Yahya Mahmassani, the Permanent Observer of the League of Arab States, said the reports of the chief UN weapons inspectors last week confirmed some positive achievements in the inspections process.
The reports also confirmed cooperation by Iraq, which reinforced the notion that such operations should continue until "such a day when the Iraqi file could be closed and the sanction lifted".
The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, speaking in Rome, said the world "should exhaust all other possibilities for a peaceful settlement before war is ever contemplated.
"And even then, it should only be contemplated when the alternative is obviously worse."