THE UN Secretary-General challenged the latest US-British plan for Iraq yesterday, saying that the occupation might not be sustainable for long enough to draft a new constitution and outlining a rival blueprint that would transfer sovereignty back to the Iraqis in as little as three months.

In a rare act of defiance, Kofi Annan dispatched a senior official to brief reporters on his alternative proposal, which is almost identical to that favoured by Germany and France, after word of his opposition to the US-British plan leaked out after a lunch with Security Council ambassadors.

Mr Annan’s rejection of the US-British approach has stopped the coalition partners’ draft UN resolution dead in its tracks. The US wanted to push through the resolution this month in the hope of attracting more foreign peacekeeping troops to Iraq and securing international donations for reconstruction.

Security Council diplomats say that the measure is now unlikely to win the necessary majority to pass without major changes, and the Bush Administration might abandon its attempt to get a new resolution.

The setback at the UN coincided with more bad news for President Bush over Iraq. He woke to a barrage of negative headlines, from sliding opinion polls to an expanding criminal inquiry into the integrity of his Administration, and an increasingly dangerous enemy in Iraq. But he remained unapologetic about the war, saying that Saddam had been “a danger to the world” and that the US was right to confront him. At a hastily arranged media conference yesterday, Mr Bush emphasised the parts of the Kay report that pointed to Saddam’s breach of UN resolutions and his pursuit of biological programmes.

But he was forced to acknowledge that his ratings were suffering. For the first time, a majority of Americans, 53 per cent, believe the war in Iraq was not worth it, according to a New York Times/CBS poll.

More worryingly for the White House, 56 per cent said the country was on the wrong track, and the percentage of those who have confidence in Mr Bush’s ability to deal wisely with an international crisis has plunged from 66 to 45 per cent since April.

Certainly the US Administration, and Britain, appeared to have misjudged the mood at the UN. France, Germany and Russia took turns yesterday to criticise the Anglo-American position and show their support for Mr Annan’s vision.

Hervé Ladsous, the French Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: “Our first impression is . . . this revised project does not incorporate the change in approach we are advocating.”

Gunther Pleuger, Germany’s UN envoy said: “What we want is not to set timetables in the resolution, but first of all let the Secretary-General talk to everybody involved and then come up with a proposal to the Security Council.”President Putin, of Russia also spoke out. “So far we are dissatisfied with the resolution proposed by our US partners,” he said at a forum in Moscow.

UN officials say Mr Annan decided to go public with his opposition because of pressure from the UN membership and a virtual revolt among his senior staff after the bomb attack on August 19 that killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, his popular envoy in Iraq, and 22 others.

A Foreign Office spokesman said last night: “We continue to believe that the US draft resolution forms a good basis for agreement.”

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