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| Sunday, 16 March 2003 |
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Bush's patience with Blair is running out as war looms: British press LONDON, Saturday (AFP) The time for talk over Iraq is nearly over as US President George W. Bush's patience with the predicament of chief ally Prime Minister Tony Blair begins to run out, the British press said Saturday. "With efforts to win a new UN resolution authorising military action apparently marooned, there were signs that Washington was losing patience with the diplomatic contortions forced on it by the UK to rescue Tony Blair from rising opposition to war," said the Financial Times. Blair has faced a backbench revolt over his stand from members of his own Labour Party, and at least one cabinet minister has threatened to resign if Britain follows the United States into war without a UN mandate. "We are looking for closure. The UK is looking for cover," said one senior Bush administration official quoted in the paper. Another official told the paper that there was a growing willingness not to call a vote on a new UN resolution at the Security Council. "The perception has taken over that the vote is not going to win anything, so why torture the institution (of the UN)," the official told the paper. This was a mood echoed by The Times which seemed almost resigned to war. "There is little to be gained in spending another week moving commas and watering down language in the hope of achieving a UN consensus only to have France exercise its ego and veto," it said. Bush's meeting with Blair and Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain in Portugal's Azores archipelago on Sunday will "certainly involve a review of their collective diplomatic options but may well conclude that military action must be initiated next week," said The Times. "No reasonable individual could deny that Tony Blair and George W. Bush have walked the UN route. If they have not managed to hold the United Nations to the logic of its own Resolution 1441 then that is an honourable failure," it concluded. But The Guardian warned that doubts were growing over the legality of war. "Any second resolution that fell would mean that Britain would have to go to war in breach of international law. This could have serious consequences for the government and the armed forces," it said. This was not considered a problem by the pro-war Sun tabloid which showed British and US forces massed on the Iraqi border below a headline of "Let's Roll." |
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