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Is the US acting as a sole superpower by snubbing UN? Post your views

United Nations: In its third attempt to win international support, the US circulated a revised draft resolution on Iraq but met with mixed response with some members saying that it does not go far enough to meet objections raised by them earlier.

In the latest version of the revised draft on the occupied Arab nation circulated on October 13, the Americans asked their hand-picked Interim Governing Council in Iraq to submit to the Security Council by December 15 a timetable for framing a new Constitution and holding elections.

The US Ambassador to UN John Negroponte said he plans to seek vote on it sometime this week. But Russia and France indicated some changes were needed and negotiations on it would be necessary, diplomats said.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said that the draft requires more study as it only calls for "a timetable on timetable to writing Constitution and holding of elections".

Russian diplomats said some changes would be necessary to win Moscow's support.

But German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer did not dismiss the draft outright and called it a "step in the right direction".

Diplomats pointed out that the draft does not give a timetable for returning full sovereignty to Iraq as demanded by France, Russia, Germany and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

It also glosses over another major demand that the United Nations be given the central role in the political process, they said pointing out that like previous drafts, it provides that the US would keep full control over both military and political processes till after an elected government is installed.

It also does not provide for establishment of an interim government.

Annan and other major powers had demanded that the United States hand over all administrative powers to the US-appointed 25-member Governing Council within five months and then allow the United Nations to help it in drafting a Constitution and organising elections. But Americans, backed by Britain, insist that the coalition would return full sovereignty to Iraq only after it holds an election under a Constitution to be drafted.

The draft does not give the central role to the United Nations but says the Iraqi Governing Council should work with United Nations Special Envoy and the US-led coalition in drawing up the timetable by December 15.

The new draft described the Governing Council and its ministers as the "principal bodies of the Iraqi interim administration which will embody the sovereignty" of Iraq during the transitional period.

PTI