Diplomatic defeat for Britain and US, but the squabbling continues

Efforts by the United Nations to forge a common line on Iraq spun apart in a shower of diplomatic sparks yesterday as Britain, the United States and Spain decided against calling for a vote on a new resolution to authorise war and accused France of sabotaging agreement in the Security Council.

The announcement, which ended several months of diplomatic push and shove in New York, came first from the British ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock. Going into a morning meeting of the Council, he said consensus on the draft "will not be possible".

A grim-faced Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, said he was ordering the withdrawal of all UN personnel from Iraq, including weapons inspectors, humanitarian workers and peace-keepers on the Iraq-Kuwait border. It means the suspension of all UN activity in the country. There are more than 300 UN-employed staff in Iraq. Mr Annan did not say when evacuations would begin.

British officials noted the ill-fated resolution had not been taken from the table altogether and could, in theory, still be revived. However, the decision not to call a vote appeared to signify that all hope for a UN-brokered diplomatic alternative to war had vanished. Washington quickly confirmed that President George Bush was planning to lay out war plans on television later in the day.

While refraining from identifying France by name, Sir Jeremy abandoned normal diplomatic courtesies to point the finger at Paris. "One country in particular has underlined its intention to veto any ultimatum 'no matter what the circumstances'," he declared. "That country rejected our proposed compromise before even the Iraqi government itself."

Mr Annan stopped just short of reiterating a suggestion he made last week that military action against Iraq without further authorisation would be illegal or in violation of the UN Charter. However, he decried the failure of the Council to reach a consensus and made clear his own reservations about the prospect of war in the absence of a new resolution.

"If the action is to take place without the support of the Council, its legitimacy will be questioned and the support for it will be diminished," he said.

France and Germany emerged from the Council meeting still talking as if war could be averted. They appeared to be pinning hopes on a report released yesterday by Hans Blix, the weapons inspector, setting out an agenda of remaining disarmament tasks for Iraq. France and Germany called for a meeting of Security Council foreign ministers today or tomorrow to seek alternatives to war in New York.

The squabbling showed no sign of abating, with the French ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, denying the British charge that Paris had torpedoed the resolution.

"It did not get the votes because the majority of the UN and, I would say the majority of people in the world, do not think it would be right to have the Council authorise the use of force," he argued.

The demise of the resolution was a stunning diplomatic defeat for Britain and the US, both more accustomed to getting their way. While the threat of a French veto had long been looming, frantic attempts last week even to win over six undecided countries – Angola, Chile, Mexico, Cameroon, Guinea and Pakistan – also came to nothing. None the less, the American envoy in New York, John Negroponte, contended, without having much evidence to back it up, that a vote on a resolution "would have been close". Seeking similarly to blame France, he added: "We regret that in the face of an explicit threat to veto, the vote-counting became a secondary consideration."

There was a surreal flavour, meanwhile, to the requests by France and Germany for a foreign ministers' meeting in New York and to their efforts to spotlight Mr Blix's report on the tasks still before Iraq. All attempts to keep the inspection process going seemed pointless given the decision of Mr Annan to withdraw inspectors. It was not clear whether the gathering of foreign ministers would happen or who would attend.

With a fine sense of timing, the UN relegated the meeting of the Council to a cramped basement conference room, blaming renovations in its normal quarters. It symbolised an organisation in the dumps. Depressed diplomats wondered how they had reached such a dismal impasse so swiftly.

It was only last September that President Bush agreed to put the Iraq crisis in the UN framework and asked for action by the Security Council. Soon afterwards, Iraq accepted the return of weapons inspectors after a four-year hiatus. And after an eight-week negotiating marathon, the Council adopted resolution 1441 giving Iraq a last chance to disarm and warning of "serious consequences" if it did not. But divisions quickly opened and they seemed beyond repair last night.