An American spy plane safely flew over Iraq today despite warnings from the Iraqis that it would shoot down the U-2 aircraft. The U.N. flight came hours before the Security Council meets to discuss Baghdad’s refusal to cooperate with arms inspections. Iraqi military officials said the plane, which crossed into southern Iraq from northern Saudi Arabia, flew outside the range of its gunners, but that it monitored the aircraft with radar until it left Iraqi airspace three hours later. President Clinton says the United States will seek a “very strong and unambiguous response” from the Security Council today to compel Iraq to give free passage to international inspectors charged with preventing President Saddam Hussein’s government from developing weapons of mass destruction. In Baghdad, Saddam made a public statement that suggested he’s unyielding. Appearing on Iraqi television, he said his country has to choose between sacrifice or slavery, and that people must decide to live honorably and with dignity or to face all the possibilities. The latest Iraq conflict began late last month after Saddam’s government blocked the U.N. Special Commission, known as UNSCOM, charged with ensuring that Iraq does not develop chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs, and insisted that Americans be removed from the inspection team. Clinton aides say their first resort before the Security Council will be sanctions, including a possible prohibition on travel by Iraqi leaders, rather than military action. At this stage, they acknowledge the latter option could not draw broad support among other nations.

President Clinton has made another plea for expanded trade negotiating power, but appeared unable to sway more than a handful of the vast majority of House Democrats standing firmly against him. After a weekend of frenetic lobbying, the fate of the legislation President Clinton has called crucial appeared increasingly to be in the hands of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republicans.

In a nod to the political clout of the gay rights movement, President Clinton on Saturday addressed a fundraiser for the nation’s largest gay and lesbian group. Clinton’s sold-out dinner speech to the Human Rights Campaign, which was greeted by a sustained standing ovation inside and pickets outside, made him the first sitting president to publicly address a gay and lesbian civil rights organization. Keeping to relatively noncontroversial territory, he urged Congress to pass legislation protecting gay men and lesbians from job discrimination and to confirm Bill Lann Lee, his nominee as assistant attorney general for civil rights.

France’s far-right leader found allies in Eastern Europe Saturday, telling a party congress of extreme Romanian nationalists he rejects the notion of a united Europe. Jean-Marie Le Pen and Corneliu Vadim Tudor, the leader of the Greater Romania Party, share the same hypernationalist, xenophobic rhetoric. The party came in fourth in last year’s election. They both reject the idea of a united Europe and urge a so-called Europe of Nations, a region of separate, intensely nationalistic countries. About 2,000 delegates and guests at the two-day Greater Romania Party congress cheered the two leaders, shouting their names and waving flags. That meeting took place in Bucharest.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. A third of homeless men seeking shelter are veterans in this country, mostly combat veterans from the Korean, Vietnam or the Persian Gulf conflicts, this according to a Veterans Day survey that was released this weekend. Phil Rydman, a spokesperson for the International Union of Gospel Missions, a network of rescue missions that conducted the survey, says that what used to be called “shell shock” and is now referred to as “post-traumatic stress syndrome” sets in at different times, accounting for the continuing flow of Vietnam veterans into missions 20 years after the war. The survey of 11,000 men seeking shelter in 58 missions in late October showed 32% were veterans. By comparison, Veterans Administration figures show about 19% of the male population are former members of the armed forces.

A senior Senate Democrat asked Saturday for a new hearing on the embattled nomination of Bill Lann Lee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the panel’s chair, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, to hold another hearing to give Lee a chance to answer allegations leveled by House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich, in a letter sent last month to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, said Lee tried to force through a consent decree requiring racial and gender preferences in the Los Angeles Police Department. Lee is western regional counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund based in Los Angeles. President Clinton nominated him to be assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department.