In the first week of August, Butler gave a series of interviews with Associated Press Television News, BBC television's Newsnight program, the new US-based Talk magazine, and the Age newspaper in Australia. The views he espouses from his plush office in Park Avenue express opinions circulating in the Clinton administration and the US foreign policy establishment about relations with the UN and with Iraq.
Tensions remain over the lifting of economic sanctions and the continuing airstrikes against Iraq.
A meeting in late June was presented with three different proposals for overcoming the stalemate. The resolution has been described as largely a continuation of the old policy. France supported the Russia-China proposal, but had its own draft proposal for lifting sanctions in steps and maintaining financial controls over Iraq. A resolution on Iraq should therefore be put to the vote only if it commands general agreement in the west. Russia and France have publicly condemned ongoing airstrikes, which killed at least 34 civilians and wounded another 40 in Iraq during July.