UN/BLIX REPORT: Hans Blix had star billing but the French foreign minister stole the show, writes Conor O'Clery.
Ten days ago Colin Powell was the star of the UN Security Council show, and the world was impressed as it watched the US Secretary of State lay out a compelling case against Iraq with slides and tape recordings. That was the case for the prosecution.
Yesterday the spotlight belonged to Dominique de Villepin, who brought from the anti-war camp the case for the defence. The grey-haired French Foreign Minister was given a rare round of applause by the gallery sitting in ranks above the council for his eloquent denunciation of the rush to war.
"At stake is our credibility, and our sense of responsibility," he said, his arms outstretched. "War is always the sanction of failure."
The session had started badly for the Americans. The order of speakers meant the case was steadily built up against war before Powell or the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had a chance to get in on the act.
The tone, wording and language of the two chief arms inspectors suggested inspections were at last working and should be continued.
The first foreign minister to speak was Farouk al-Shara of Syria, who got to remind the council of the "double standard" that angered Arabs, the useless "dead letter" resolutions on the rights of Palestinians.
Then came de Villepin, with his request for at least another month of inspections, his warning that an exacerbation of cultural differences by war would nurture only more terrorism, and his plea for peace from the "old country" - echoing the "old Europe" put-down Donald Rumsfeld used to dismiss France and Germany.
Only when Spain's turn came, followed by the UK, did the tide stop running against the Americans. Jack Straw started with a cross-Channel barb, drawing laughter even from de Villepin as he recalled that his "very old country" dated back to before 1066, when France invaded.
This gave Colin Powell his opening line, that he was "Secretary of State of a relatively new country but representative of the oldest democracy - \ that believes in peace".
He cut no ice with the Russian or Chinese foreign ministers, who echoed the French case that they had not reached the point where all alternatives to war had been exhausted.
Coming last was the timid Iraqi ambassador. His message was the same as that of his foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, in Rome, that "an empty hand has nothing to give".