After meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at U.N. headquarters for nearly 45 minutes late in the afternoon, the secretary of state told reporters the measure was "forward looking."
"I just had a good conversation with the secretary-general where I had the opportunity to describe the kind of resolution that we believe is appropriate and we would expect to present it to all the council members this week," Powell said. "It is a resolution that does not fight the battles of the past. It is forward looking, a resolution that will unite the international community to help the people of Iraq to a better life and to build a new government.
"It will lift the sanctions to that end and I think it is a resolution that everybody will be able to rally around," he said. "It is also a resolution that will give a role to the secretary-general to play and the United Nations to play."
He was asked about those opponents in past battles in the 15-member council, particularly China, France, Germany and Russia, which opposed the British-United States coalition attempt to gain endorsement of the move on Iraq.
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are the permanent five, veto-wielding members of the panel. Germany is one of the 10 members elected to two-year terms.
"We are working with all of our friends to include Germany and France and Russia and China, Powell said. Support was also being sought among the other members on the draft.
"Whatever happened in the past was in the past," he said. "We are not now talking about a matter of war. We are talking about a matter of peace. We are talking about a matter of hope. We are talking about helping the Iraqi people and this resolution has that as its singular purpose, to help the Iraqi people to obtain a better life for themselves and their children and to put in place a democratic form of government representing all the people of Iraq that will live in peace with its neighbors and be a responsible nation among the family of nations."
The secretary of state was in New York City along with European Union High Representative Javier Solana to speak on "trans-Atlantic relations" at a Foreign Policy Association dinner. It was expected Powell and Solana would meet "maybe after dinner" since the secretary was spending the night in New York, a U.S. official said.
Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, told reporters before the secretary-general's late afternoon meeting with Powell: "I think it's safe to assume that the two will want to talk not only about Iraq, but most likely the road map for the Middle East and there may be other items as well."
However, the secretary of state did not mention the Middle East in his brief remarks to reporters and Eckhard did not describe the meeting nor give a reaction to Powell's proposal.
Earlier in the day, Eckhard said he thought Annan's "main concern is that the council unite around a resolution that is consistent with U.N. principles and the (U.N.) Charter."
The spokesman said the other 14 members of the council want "the United States to put forward its draft. So, my sense is that is what everyone is waiting for. We'll see when that happens."
A few weeks ago, officials said President George W. Bush had decided on one "omnibus" measure to cover all Iraq issues at once. More recently several U.S. officials said they expected provisions for protecting or recovering Iraq's "antiquities" would be included in the single measure.
One thing for sure, the Bush administration wants an immediate lifting of Security Council sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 after its invasion of Kuwait, which led to the first Gulf War the following year. That would also allow for the immediate sale of oil.
Lifting the embargo would be contrary to earlier resolutions that called for Iraq to disarm before sanctions end.
However, since the council writes its own rules, it can supercede whatever is on the books with a new measure.
France wants only an immediate suspension of sanctions and the return of weapons inspectors.
Russia wants U.N. inspectors to first certify Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction before the sanctions are suspended or lifted.
The immediate concern at U.N. headquarters would be the choice of a coordinator appointed by Annan, said Eckhard.
"What he (Annan) has said is that he wants to know the job description before he considers someone to fill the job. He would report his intention to name such a special representative to the Security Council and he would await the council's response, so the job description should come from the council. It should flow from the council deliberations."
The spokesman said the council could even come up with a resolution covering a coordinator and, "The council would have to approve the appointment."
Asked what more the secretary-general was able to do at the moment on Iraq, Eckhard said: "He's quite limited by his job description as to what he can do, particularly when the council is not yet of one mind on how it wants to approach Iraq."
The spokesman pointed out Annan brought all the council members to his 38th floor conference room last week to lay out "what he considered the questions that the council needed to address, some of the options that they might want to consider, but again his purpose in doing that was to nudge them towards a common position."
Eckhard said he was "not sure" what else the secretary-general could do, "apart from staying in touch with all the players and continuing to urge them to come to one position that could then be enshrined in a resolution that could be a good, solid framework for how the international community as a whole is going to deal with Iraq once the stabilization period headed by the coalition is over."
Regardless of a U.S. or any other Iraq resolution, the spokesman said, humanitarian work would be coordinated by the world organization "under universal mandates" for U.N. agencies "already active in Iraq."
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
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