Security Council Backs Us on Iraq

The UN security council today gave its unanimous approval to a US-drafted resolution authorising its occupation of Iraq.

Its adoption means that countries who had been reluctant to aid the US in Iraq may now be more inclined to give troops and money to improve stability and speed up the reconstruction effort in the country.

Domestic political pressures in countries such as India and Pakistan would have made it difficult to send troops to Iraq without some form of UN blessing. Washington also needed to obtain UN legitimacy ahead of an international conference in Madrid next week to secure donations for reconstruction.

Both are important to the US president, George Bush, who is facing increasing criticism at home over the cost of the occupation in terms of men and money.

The resolution was however contentious and earlier versions of the text were not put to the vote when it became clear they would not attract the necessary support.

A concession announced earlier this week, setting a deadline for Iraq's US-appointed governing council to draw up a timetable to a new constitution and elections, allowed France, Russia and Germany to support the resolution. But the US still had to postpone the vote - originally scheduled for yesterday - to allow the three to discuss the final draft and decide whether to support it.

The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, told reporters at an EU summit in Brussels that the leaders had agreed their line believing the resolution to be an "important step in the right direction".

But their backing does not in itself guarantee that the US will receive the financial and miltary support it is seeking.

France had demanded that the resolution set a date for the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi people but instead agreed to a date for that process to begin.

Speaking before the vote, Mr Chirac's spokeswoman, Catherine Colonna, said France, like Russia and Germany, was "very far from being able to commit financially or militarily" to the reconstruction of Iraq and other countries may share that view.

If they do, the US has a lot more difficult diplomacy ahead of it.

"Really the goal is to try to get something more than a piece of paper, to try to get money and troops. We hope the resolution combined with the upcoming donor conference will help," a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press.

In an unexpected move, Syria, the only Arab nation on the council and an opponent of the US-led war, backed the resolution rather than opposing it or abstaining.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said in a press conference after the vote that the resolution was an important step to a "free Iraq run by the Iraqi people".