The US has won strong support from major UN powers in Washington for new sanctions against Iraq. They are expected to be adopted by the Security Council today. The US ambassador, Mr Bill Richardson, said yesterday there was "near unanimity" among the 15 members of the council in favour of a sanctions resolution sponsored by the US and Britain.
The resolution would place a travel ban on Iraqi officials who block UN weapons inspections and warns of "further measures as may be required" to force Iraq into compliance.
It also condemns Iraq's actions and demands that Baghdad scrap an October 29th decision to bar Americans from conducting UN weapons inspections.
"This resolution is moving like a freight train," Mr Richardson said after the text was presented to the Security Council. He said four of the five permanent members of the council had indicated that they would vote in favour and that the fifth was awaiting instructions from his government.
Diplomatic sources said China was the country awaiting instructions, confirming that France and Russia had decided to support the resolution after ensuring that it would not authorise unilateral military action against Iraq.
Britain's UN deputy representative, Mr Stephen Gomersall, said last night "the whole council is likely to be behind the decision when it is taken tomorrow." However he said a final diplomatic push was under way to convince Baghdad to back down.
Iraq said earlier yesterday its threats to shoot down a US spy plane operated for the UN and to expel US arms experts still stood.
"We will shoot down any, any flight, I mean the U-2 and any aircraft which threatens our security," the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Mr Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf, said in Baghdad.
Mr al-Sahhaf also said the expulsion of US arms experts, for which a deadline lapsed last Wednesday, would go ahead if dialogue at the UN fails to resolve the stand-off over weapons inspections. He added that Baghdad was prepared for any attack. "We have taken all preventive measures to defend the people and the country against any US attack."
Mr Alan Dacey, of the UN arms monitoring centre, said Baghdad yesterday blocked four inspection teams of the UN Special Commission (Unscom) for Disarming Iraq from weapons sites by barring access to US experts.
Babel, a newspaper run by President Saddam Hussein's son Uday, warned that Iraq could break all links with Unscom unless Baghdad's demands are met over arms inspections and sanctions.
Iraq has said only non-US nationals can take part in arms inspections because, it claims, Washington has been using Unscom to keep economic sanctions in place. The UN oil embargo in force since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait cannot be lifted until Unscom certifies that it has eliminated Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction.
The US has warned that a military option has not been ruled out.
China, meanwhile, had earlier urged the Security Council "to listen to the UN Special Commission and Iraq on inspection so as to obtain an objective view", while renewing demands for Baghdad to abide by UN resolutions.
In New York, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tareq Aziz, shrugged off any threat of new sanctions. "If anybody thinks that it is going to scare Iraq with further sanctions, I am telling him here outright that he cannot scare us because there is nothing beyond what the Iraqi people have suffered," he said.
On the military front, US naval chiefs said their forces in the Gulf were on high alert. The US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, said the Pentagon was ready to send more aircraft carriers into the Gulf.
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