Developments Saturday in the Iraq crisis:

• Britain and the United States began a diplomatic push for support for their proposal of a March 17 deadline for Saddam Hussein to fully disarm.
• French President Jacques Chirac pressed his own alternative proposal to the U.S.-backed deadline, a summit of world leaders at the Security Council to work out a compromise. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that if the United States launches an Iraq war on its own, it would be a violation of the U.N. charter.
• After U.N. weapons inspectors praise Iraq’s cooperation, Baghdad calls for the lifting of sanctions imposed since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It also calls for the Security Council to take action against Israeli and American weapons of mass destruction.