His Lonely March

By Romesh Ratnesar

The most solemn moments for an army preparing to wage war come right before it begins. For weeks now, the 250,000 soldiers positioned on Iraq's borders have been winding down their rehearsals, armed and ready to invade, waiting only for President Bush to declare that the diplomatic clock has run out. It appears they won't be waiting much longer. At the White House last Thursday night, Bush looked and sounded like a Commander in Chief who has already made up his mind. "It makes no sense to allow this issue to continue on and on," he said, surely signaling the start of the final march toward war. The next day, at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw introduced an amendment to last month's U.S.-British resolution--the measure declaring that Iraq had missed its last chance to disarm--that appoints an hour for the Iraqi leader's reckoning. The amended resolution would give Saddam until March 17 to comply with the entire 12-year panoply of Security Council resolutions against him, which would require that he hand over any banned weapons he possesses and provide a full accounting for the ones he claims he has destroyed. Unless Saddam meets those demands by the deadline, U.S. and British forces will, within days of the 17th, invade Iraq. In other words, only a miracle--a complete change of heart, a coup, a journey to exile--can stop a war now.

So war it shall be, even though the U.S. still doesn't know who will be on its side. Administration officials ended last week planning to force a vote on the second U.N. resolution, even without commitments of votes from nine of the 15 Security Council members, the number needed for the second resolution to pass. France and Russia have the authority to veto, and both vowed to "block" the Security Council from sanctioning the use of force, even if the U.S. lines up the votes needed to approve it. Administration officials are betting that neither country would risk such an outright challenge to American will, knowing that the U.S. will go ahead with an invasion anyway. But even if a second resolution squeaks through, the cause of multilateral unity will have been badly tarnished. In the minds of many U.S. officials, the failure of the U.N. to agree on an approach for dealing with Iraq has compromised its relevance as a body the U.S. can turn to for help in fighting security threats. The fact that the U.S. has been forced to scramble for the barest of majorities in the Security Council while still courting the danger of a veto has also been a sobering lesson in the limits of American power. No matter how the vote turns out, the Administration's push for war and its failure to satisfy the world's objections to it mean that American troops are about to fight, and die, in a war that major U.S. allies do not endorse.

The U.S. effort against Iraq took a hammering last Friday, after the U.N.'s chief weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, told the Security Council that Baghdad is now taking "pro-active" steps to cooperate with the inspectors' requests, demonstrated most dramatically by Iraq's destruction last week of 40 banned al-Samoud missiles. "We are not watching the breaking of toothpicks," Blix said. ElBaradei disputed the veracity of Western intelligence reports that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. Secretary of State Colin Powell could barely contain his exasperation with the inspectors' upbeat assessments. Privately, his aides trashed them--"Pathetically unaggressive, amateurish and believing everything the Iraqis tell them," a senior State Department official said--and claimed that the inspectors are ignoring tips from U.S. intelligence and capitulating to Iraqi intimidation. Inspectors vehemently deny the charges. But Powell's Russian and French counterparts hailed the reports of progress and repeated their threats to block passage of the Anglo-American resolution. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin rejected the idea that the British amendment amounted to a compromise, saying, "We would not accept a resolution that will lead to war."

De Villepin's statements, which were echoed by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, may have been just as significant for the four-letter word they pointedly avoided: veto. France and Russia could veto the second resolution if Washington strong-arms enough yes votes out of the six countries sitting on the fence, but the U.S. believes France and Russia can be stared down. Russia, in particular, is under intense U.S. pressure to keep its veto in its pocket. U.S. diplomats are trying to peel Russia away and isolate Paris, daring the French to veto the U.S. resolution on their own. At a closed-doors lunch after Friday's meeting, Powell made an emotional last appeal for support, telling the other ministers that the U.S. would never have come to the U.N. to begin with if it were hell-bent on war. Powell appeared to be personally hurt by French intransigence; it was France, after all, who in October demanded that the U.S. return to the Security Council for a second resolution before going to war. Powell's speech may have softened the hearts of wavering member states: one U.N. ambassador at the lunch called Powell's speech "inspirational."

There would certainly be benefits to bringing more countries on board. Sealing a second resolution would allow the Administration to drape a multilateralist cloak over what many have charged is a U.S.-driven obsession with ousting Saddam. A U.N. stamp of approval would also make it easier for the U.S. to ask for the U.N.'s help in rebuilding Iraq after the war. And the various issues that will clamor for the world's attention after Iraq--from North Korea to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--could grow into far more dangerous crises if the U.S. and its allies can't figure out a way to put behind them the differences that emerged over Iraq.

But for the Bush Administration, that's all beyond the horizon. Aides close to Bush say the President has decided to confront Saddam now, with any partners he can get. Even among the internationalists at the State Department, who have long warned against the dangers of going it alone, support for giving diplomacy and the inspections more time has vanished. "More and more people are saying 'enough already,'" says a U.S. official. "We're the U.S., for chrisakes. We don't plead. We don't beg. You're either with us or not."

Washington insists it has never needed a second resolution explicitly authorizing military action. Resolution 1441, passed in November, promises "serious consequences" if Iraq fails to comply. Bush decided to seek the later resolution last month at the prodding of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who needs at least a semblance of U.N. support to help convince his party and the British public, both of which are hostile to a war without that backing. Since many Americans also prefer to have the U.N.'s approval for a war against Iraq, the quest for nine votes has become a political priority for Bush. And so the President worked the phones all week, making the Administration's case to the leaders of some swing nations, including Pakistan, Mexico, Cameroon and Chile. A senior Administration official says Bush didn't explicitly ask for wavering countries' votes, but he came close. "I hope together we can affirm the willingness of the Security Council to enforce its own resolutions," the aide says, paraphrasing Bush's pitch, "and I need you to do that." Bush focused special attention on Russian President Vladimir Putin; after speaking by phone last Thursday, the two leaders agreed to "continue to communicate." A White House official told TIME that Putin assured Bush he wouldn't cast a veto. "There were rumors that the Russians were going to veto," says the official. "The President had a conversation and got a different impression--not that Putin was with him, but that he's not going to veto."

Until the final votes are cast, though, assurances count for nothing. Inside the hallways of the U.N., the battle for votes was so pitched that some delegates wouldn't talk strategy on phones, for fear they could be tapped. The White House denied that the U.S. offered any incentives to indecisive states, but the members weren't so hesitant. "We're keeping our options open," says a diplomat from one swing country. "It's a tantalizing situation now."

The allies' decision to offer an amendment giving Saddam a clear deadline for compliance was aimed at winning over the undecideds. With the U.S. bringing a second resolution to a vote this week, Saddam would still have until next Monday to comply--a pause sufficient perhaps to allow governments to say they did not vote for the "automatic" use of force. Last week U.S. and British head counters believed the amendment may be enough to sway Mexico and Chile, and they sensed the African countries' moving toward their column.

For the allied war planners, the maneuverings in New York City are now a sideshow. "It's always been our position, whether it's one, two, three vetoes or however many there are--if they are unreasonable, then it is not going to stop us," says a British official. The military campaign will probably become the U.S.'s chief instrument of diplomacy. The Pentagon's plan is to launch a massive early blitz that would demoralize Saddam's forces and lead to a quick liberation with limited casualties; if that happens, the Administration believes, hostility to U.S. action will peter out. As it tries to line up votes for a last-chance U.N. resolution, the U.S. is already discussing the prospect of U.N. involvement in a post-Saddam Iraq. Given the enormity of the task of rebuilding that country, it makes sense to get started now. "The United States will come to the U.N. for reconstruction help," says a senior U.N. diplomat, "and they'll get it."

So, ready or not: the U.S. appears headed for Baghdad, with a coalition of the willing, or at least grudgingly willing, trailing behind. The signs that war is fast approaching are impossible to ignore. As U.S. troops in northern Kuwait readied for combat last week, U.N. monitors discovered several 82-ft.-wide gaps in the electric fence that runs along the border between Iraq and Kuwait. Workers say the Kuwaiti government hired them to cut 35 gaps in the barrier by March 15, big enough for tanks to roll through. --Reported by Massimo Calabresi and John F. Dickerson/Washington, Helen Gibson/London and Marguerite Michaels/U.N.

With reporting by Massimo Calabresi and John F. Dickerson/Washington, Helen Gibson/London and Marguerite Michaels/U.N.