U.S., UN divided over inspections

With an advance team of UN weapons inspectors due to arrive in Baghdad today after a four year absence, the United States and the United Nations are divided over how aggressively the inspectors should conduct their hunt for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes in Iraq, UN and U.S. officials say.

The Bush administration is insisting on the most intrusive inspections possible, pushing UN arms experts to probe where previous inspectors could not and to impose strict reporting requirements on the Iraqi government.

Secretary of State Colin Powell cautioned Thursday against the view that President Saddam Hussein will be given any slack in the inspection process that would deter the United States from using force if Iraq fails to cooperate.

The UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, has argued for a more measured approach to achieving disarmament.

Blix spelled out his aims at a meeting with recruits to the inspections teams in Vienna last month at which he said they should be firm with their Iraqi counterparts but never angry and aggressive.

The division reflects broad differences in the UN Security Council that remain unresolved despite the council's unanimous approval November 8 of Resolution 1441, which sets out stringent new terms for inspections in Iraq.

And it may foreshadow clashes between the United States and its partners in the United Nations as Blix and his teams begin their inspections November 27.

In a letter to Iraq's parliament accepting the resumption of inspections, Hussain reiterated his contention that Iraq is devoid of weapons of mass destruction.

The claim was dismissed by President Bush in his weekly radio address. "We have heard such pledged before and they have been unfortunately betrayed," Bush said.

"Our goal is not merely the return of inspectors to Iraq; our goal is the disarmament of Iraq. The dictator of Iraq will give up his weapons of mass destruction or the United States will lead a coalition and disarm him."

While Bush has argued that the 15-nation Security Council should have zero tolerance for Iraqi violations, making even minor infractions a potential cause for military action, Blix, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and other key Security Council members such as Russia and France maintain that Iraq will be held accountable only for serious violations.

"The U.S. does seem ... to have a lower threshold than others may have" to justify military action, Annan told reporters in Washington on Wednesday before meeting with Bush.

"I think the discussion in the council made it clear we should be looking for something serious and meaningful, and not for excuses to do something."

Annan's view reflects those of UN members who have interpreted comments by senior White House and Pentagon officials as suggesting that conflict with Iraq may be inevitable.

Since the Security Council vote, administration officials have argued that the resolution prohibits Iraq from firing on U.S. and British war planes enforcing no fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.

The resolution says Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts against UN member personnel upholding any previous resolutions, but the United States has differed with other UN members over whether the Security Council ever sanctioned the no fly zone policy.

Asked about the matter in Canada Thursday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell acknowledged one could argue with the U.S. interpretation.

But he said the United Nations was seeking a new spirit of cooperation from Iraq, and so firing on aircraft would suggest Iraq's behavior had not changed.

"If they were to take hostile acts against United States or United Kingdom aircraft patrolling in the no fly zones, then I think we would have to look at that with great seriousness," Powell said.

The issue was thrust into the open today as administration officials said they have determined that an attack by Iraqi air defenses Friday against U.S. and British war planes patrolling a no fly zone in southern Iraq was a material breach of Baghdad's obligations under the terms of the resolution.

The Iraqi government said that seven civilians were killed and four injured by allied planes responding to the attack.

Blix and Mohammed El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will arrive in Baghdad today with more than 25 technical specialists.

Blix told reporters Friday that he and El Baradei will meet with senior Iraqi officials while their team sets up their telephone and fax lines and arranges for the inspectors' transportation.

About 12 arms experts are to arrive on Nov. 27 and formally begin the inspections. They will be joined by another 80 inspectors during the following weeks.

As the inspections get underway, UN officials have voiced concern that the United States will press for the kind of provocative inspections that characterised the 1991 to 1998 disarmament effort by the UN Special Commission, known as UNSCOM.

Blix, who assumed leadership of UNSCOM's successor agency in 2000, is trying to change the culture of the arms inspectors, whose predecessors aroused deep animosity in Iraq for using tough tactics to gain access to UN sites.

Scott Ritter, a former UN inspector who frequently clashed with Iraqi officials, personified the spirit of the UNSCOM teams when he described himself as the alpha dog.

"When the Iraqis come up with their tail up, my tail goes higher," Ritter said, "when they growl, I growl louder, when they bark, I jump on them and I kick them to the ground."

Addressing his new recruits in Vienna on Oct. 7, Blix adopted a far different tone."Inspectors are not sent to harass, humiliate or provoke; but nor do they come to be duped," Blix said.

He offered tips for tense encounters with Iraqi officials, noting, for example, that a light tone or a joke may sometimes break a nervous atmosphere in the field.

The conduct and composition of the inspections teams have emerged as a major issue in recent weeks. Iraq and other Arab governments appealed to Blix, who has employed more inspectors from the United States than from any other country, to hire more Arab arms experts, saying they would be more in tune with Iraq's religious and cultural sensitivies.