US said to reject UN resolution on Iraq this year

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters11-26-113128.asp?reg=MIDEAST

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 26 — Despite a request from interim Iraqi leaders, the United States is having second thoughts about introducing any U.N. resolution on Iraq before March, diplomats said on Wednesday.

The United States and Britain had considered but not yet drafted a Security Council resolution to welcome a U.S.-Iraqi timetable that ends with a new ratified constitution and an elected federal government by the end of 2005.
But diplomats said the Bush administration was in no mood to negotiate a new measure that would face demands by France, Russia and Germany for a text beyond a simple endorsement. Britain, the envoys said, had not been as categorical in rejecting a resolution this year.
Jalal Talabani, acting president of the U.S.-selected Iraqi Governing Council, appealed to the 15-nation Security Council in a letter on Monday to endorse in a resolution the plan for self-rule. This begins with a new ''basic law'' in March, a selection of a legislative body and transfer of power to a transitional administration by the end of June.
But U.S. officials said Talabani had told the American-led administration in Iraq that the request for a resolution should not have been sent as there were objections from some members of the Governing Council as well as Washington.
''Apparently somebody dropped a draft in the mail and the final version doesn't have the same language,'' a U.S. official said in Washington on Tuesday.
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