Then, senior officials said, the assumption was that if the United States resorted to bombing there would be no possibility of resuming the U.N. inspections. Today, officials intend to maintain pressure on Iraq after an attack to let the inspectors back to work. So far, only Britain has shown open support for the threat of military action against Iraq. Yesterday, the initial responses by members of the Security Council to Butler's report showed that if the the United States wants to pursue a military option to force compliance, it will have to act largely on its own. However, Russian Ambassador Sergei Lavrov, whose government advocates a flexible approach to Iraq, said Butler's report offered hints that there had been progress toward resolving the access dispute.
Diplomatic means is the only way.
A similar line was taken by Chinese Ambassador Qin Huasun. At the same time, as a sovereign state, Iraq's dignity and legitimate security considerations should be taken into account. . . . Any prejudgments about action should be avoided. While such a finding has been used in the past to authorize the use of force against Baghdad, U.S. officials have maintained that previous resolutions already give them authority for military action. Many diplomats here believe a military strike would doom all future cooperation between the United Nations and Iraq, offer no guarantees that the bombing would achieve its objective of destroying hidden Iraqi weapons, and unleash a worldwide outcry against U.S. attacks endangering and even killing Iraqi civilians.