A week of haggling still lay ahead. But the outcome–a unanimous 15-0 vote in the Security Council last Friday, with even Russia and Iraq’s Arab neighbor Syria agreeing to Washington’s tough line–is widely seen as a triumph for Powell. It wasn’t just because of his hands-on role (he was calling some of his foreign counterparts so often that he put their numbers on his speed dial). The entire strategy of going through the Security Council was Powell’s, one he had to sell back in August to a skeptical President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Just a month ago, Powell faced near-certain defeat in the Security Council. The first U.S. draft, a copy of which has been obtained by NEWSWEEK, called for “all necessary means to restore international peace and security.” It also permitted any permanent Security Council member (read: the United States) to send its own inspectors, backed by armed forces. “It was the only way to get the Pentagon to sign off on it,” said one source. Most Security Council members opposed those demands. The tide turned only when Bush himself intervened in late October, approving a new draft resolution with softer language. But the real test of Powell’s approach will come in the next several weeks, starting on Nov. 15, the deadline for Iraqi compliance. Officials fear that Powell’s major concession–agreeing to go back to the Security Council before opting for war–could provoke a new debate if the Iraqi tyrant, as expected, offers just enough compliance to satisfy war-skittish Security Council members like Russia.
Powell’s personal credibility is on the line–and so is the president’s. The day after his daughter’s wedding, U.S. and French sources say, Powell assured de Villepin that Washington would allow a genuine Security Council debate in the event that chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix reports Iraqi defiance or deceit. Bush repeated the assurance to French President Jacques Chirac–and in return, sources say, got Chirac’s promise that if Saddam defied the United Nations, France was ready to contemplate his overthrow.
Bush has approved a bold invasion plan that calls for a first phase of liberating southern and northern Iraq while isolating Saddam in Baghdad. The United States has massed in the gulf enough weaponry for almost three tank divisions and a Marine division; an initial assault could begin within two weeks of Bush’s giving the order. The administration is also finalizing plans for a post-Saddam Iraq, NEWSWEEK has learned. Officials say the scheme realistically sets aside hopes for early democracy in Iraq, calling instead for a U.S.-led occupation force lasting several years and a carefully selected representative government with delegates from the major Iraqi ethnic and religious groups. It calls for a “pluralist system, not democratic in a literal sense,” says one senior diplomat who has been briefed on the plan.
