After weeks of delay, the Bush administration expects to submit a revised resolution on disarmament in Iraq to the UN Security Council this week in hopes of forging unanimity among the body's 15 nations.
Washington has refined some language, first proposed last week, that calls on UN arms inspectors to report any serious violation or "material breach" by Iraq to the Security Council before any military strike could be launched, diplomats said.
But the United States still opposes allowing the council to authorize the use force or to determine what would constitute a "further material breach" of UN resolutions.
"I would expect that we would submit an updated text to the council very soon," State Department Richard Boucher said in Washington this evening.The new US text is expected on Wednesday in hopes the 15-member council can vote by Friday .
He said the new text went "a long way" in taking into account the views of other council members but that the US "bottom line" had not changed.