Coming Soon! Saint Patrick's Week in San Francisco, 2003

Showdown as Britain sets March 17 deadline on Iraq


(Photographer: Miss Templeton)

The stage was set last night for a final, climactic showdown over Iraq at the UN next week, after a British proposal to set Saddam Hussein an ultimatum of March 17 only deepened the divide in the security council.

The stakes were raised further by a French proposal that the leaders of the security council nations should go to New York to decide between war and peace, in a vote expected next week. The White House rejected the suggestion, the British were doubtful, but the French and Russians insisted last night that their presidents were willing to make the trip.

Yesterday saw the sharpest exchange to date between the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, after France threatened to wield its veto. Mr Villepin described the British ultimatum as a "pretext for war".

"And I swear I did not see the irony
When I rode with the Seventh Cavalry
I thought that we fought for the land of the free
When we rode from Fort Lincoln that morning."