|
|
The United Nations Security Council meets to hear the report of chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix Friday, March 7, 2003.
ASSOCIATED PRESS |
UNITED NATIONS -- Pity Francois Lonseny Fall, the foreign minister of Guinea. Friday's war-or-peace Security Council meeting was his first day on the job presiding over the bitterly deadlocked 15-member body.
Wearing traditional robes of powder blue and a bright white hat, he conducted himself with exaggerated kindness, despite the gravity of the issues.
In turn, each speak wished him well. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, pushing for approval of using force to make Iraq disarm, began his speech by paying homage to Fall.
"Mr. President, let me join my colleagues in congratulating you on the assumption of the presidency," Powell said. "And I know you will lead us in these difficult days with great distinction."
And on the meeting went. Britain Foreign Secretary Jack Straw repeatedly called France's foreign minister by his first name and the staid atmosphere abruptly changed.
Laughter erupted the first time Straw referred to France's Dominique de Villepin as simply "Dominique."
Citing the French foreign minister's speech, in which de Villepin noted heavy pressure from Britain and the United States, Straw said: "Dominique ... with due respect to my good friend and colleague, I think it's gone the other way around."
Diplomats take great care in addressing each other in public. Calling a foreign minister by his or her first name during an internationally televised Security Council meeting was not unsubtle. And Straw repeated it several times throughout his speech, drawing murmurs, and eventually, applause from ministerial staff members in the balcony.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, whose country sides with France, is nonetheless a friend to both. "I know my friend Jack Straw. I don't want to comment on his performance," he said outside the chambers.
The morning started slowly. In small groups scattered among the council's powder-blue chairs, ambassadors talked among themselves about an hour before the meeting began. The silver-haired Angolan ambassador, Ismael Abrado Gaspar Martins, arrived in a crimson tie and black suit. American envoy John Negroponte, whose stooped shoulders sometimes look as if he is folding in on himself, walked in minutes later and made straight for a British colleague.
By 10:30, the scheduled opening of the council, the room was packed. Powell stood with his old friend Negroponte. Like guests at a high society dinner party, everyone scanned the room, looking just past the person they were talking to, determining if their attention might be put to better use elsewhere.
The gavel sounded at 10:38 a.m. Fall, whose country assumed the council's rotating presidency last weekend, took the president's chair in the middle of the circular table.
After a few record-keeping items, he gave the floor to chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who gave their updates on efforts to disarm Iraq.
Britain's Straw was the 12th speaker. After him speakers included representives of Angola, Cameroon, Bulgaria and Pakistan, though the balcony area was mostly deserted after Straw's speech. Straw had proposed an amendment that sets March 17 as the deadline for Iraq to disarm or face war. It was the biggest news of the day and it sent journalists and diplomatic staff members running down the halls, chasing insight into what it all meant.
Have a thought? Go to the 
