United Nations ? The United States pushed Wednesday for a quick U.N. vote on a revised Iraq resolution that threatens Saddam Hussein with “serious consequences,” while trying to ease concerns about setting off a war.

But after eight weeks of intensive wrangling in the Security Council, and some major concessions by the Bush administration, France and Russia are still not satisfied.

French President Jacques Chirac called Russia’s Vladimir Putin Wednesday to discuss the new text and both agreed that “ambiguities” that could be used to trigger an attack on Iraq must be removed, Chirac’s spokeswoman said.

U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said the United States intends to put the draft resolution to a vote on Friday and “deserves consensus support.”

If the resolution is adopted on Friday, Iraq would have seven days to accept the terms. U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said an advance team would be in Baghdad within 10 days of its acceptance.

Inspectors would have 45 days to actually begin work, and would have to report to the council 60 days later on Iraq’s performance.

While the revised draft offers concessions to critics, including a greater role for the Security Council, it still meets the Bush administration’s key demands: toughening inspections, threatening Iraq with “serious consequences,” and freeing the United States to take military action against Iraq if inspectors say it isn’t complying.

At the same time, it gives Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “a final opportunity” to cooperate with weapons inspectors, holds out the possibility of lifting 12-year-old sanctions imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and reaffirms the country’s sovereignty.

Negroponte officially introduced the new text at a closed-door council meeting, where Blix and other members noted several problems. “We’ll see if we can find some way to accommodate the concern that other delegations expressed and the points that Dr. Blix made,” Negroponte said.

But the U.S. administration said that it was now in the endgame and that the new text offered Iraq an opportunity to avoid war.

The Security Council scheduled another round of negotiations today, and Singapore’s U.N. Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani said “it’s very clear that we are moving closer and closer to consensus.”

But whether the United States, and its co-sponsor Britain, can get all 15 council members on board remains to be seen. For a resolution to be adopted, it needs at least nine “yes” votes and no veto by a permanent member the United States, Russia, France, China and Britain.

No council member has mentioned a veto. Syria, Iraq’s Arab neighbor, remains opposed to any new resolution. Norway, Colombia and Bulgaria appear to be on board with the United States while Mexico and Singapore said their governments were studying the draft.