The Council has 15 members - five permanent members (with vetoes) and 10 elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms. Each member takes it in turn to be in the chair for one month.

That means to get a majority the UK and the USA would have needed to get another five countries voting with them. Legally speaking that wouldn't have meant anything, since to pass a motion the support of abstention of all the permanent members would have been needed - moreover the resolution was in fact meaningless, since its text contained nothing whatsoever to authorise military action. However getting majority in support would have been politically very useful especially for Tony Blair.

The Sony plausible explanations for deciding not to go for the resolution are either that it was clear there was no majority to be had, in spite of threats and bribes; or on the other hand, legal advice was that a defeated resolution would make it impossible to even argue that Resolution 1441 authorised war. Quite possibly both explanations combined to decide to withdraw the "second resolution.