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Iraq erects new obstacles to arms inspections
Compiled from Times wires UNITED NATIONS -- The Iraqi government erected new hurdles Friday to unrestricted U.N. weapons inspections, saying it could not provide security guarantees to U.N. aircraft in northern and southern Iraq and warning that new inspections could be impeded if the United Nations fails to pay for services that had previously been free. A senior Iraqi official, Gen. Amir al-Saadi, told Hans Blix, the U.N.'s chief weapons inspector, in a letter that 'the aggressive military acts by the U.S. and British air forces" enforcing no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq would hamper Iraq's capacity to guarantee the safety of weapons inspectors. U.N. officials maintain that the inability to fly their aircraft to U.N. offices scheduled to be set up in the regional capitals of Mosul and Basra in northern and southern Iraq could add several hours to the time it would take them to conduct inspections, eliminating the element of surprise. The Iraqi letter, which was also addressed to Mohammed El-Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, produced fresh uncertainty over the precise rights of U.N. inspectors in Iraq and the prospects for credible inspections. Bush administration officials seized on the letter as evidence that Iraq cannot be trusted to comply with its obligations to destroy its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons even as they pressed ahead with negotiations on a new inspections resolution. "We're not surprised that once again the Iraqis want to delay and deceive," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations. "We've had 16 unanswered resolutions and 11 years of playing this game and it's time to take action." Blix had appealed to Saadi in an Oct. 8 letter to confirm Iraq's commitment to abide by a series of U.N. terms for inspections of national security sites, interviews of scientists, surveillance operations and travel to suspected weapons facilities. But Saadi ignored Blix's request, proposing instead a resumption of negotiations to resolve "any difficulties which may confront our work." He also dismissed Blix's insistence that Iraq, which operates daily flights from Baghdad to Basra, does have the ability to ensure the safety of U.N. aircraft along the same route. Saadi also advised Blix that inspections would unfold more smoothly if Iraq were to be paid for providing equipment, personnel and other services required by the U.N. inspectors to do their work. "We believe that when such services are rendered for a price they will be more efficient and faster," he said. "We have put up this view as a suggestion." Under the previous U.N. inspections program, which broke off in 1998 and was abandoned the following year, Iraq was not reimbursed for the services. Official insists Iraq not a threat to U.S.Iraq's deputy prime minister responded to a resolution by the U.S. Congress authorizing the use of force against Iraq on Friday by saying that he was not surprised by the vote and that his nation would be ready to respond to an American attack "within an hour." "We will confront these plans of aggression," Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told reporters in Beirut, Lebanon, after meeting Lebanese President Emile Lahoud. "Iraq is not a threat to anyone -- not neighboring countries, not America," Aziz said. "Bush wants complete hegemony over the region. He wants to control the oil. He wants political and military control." As the Bush administration now shifts its focus to lobbying members of the U.N. Security Council to support a new resolution on Iraq, Baghdad has mounted a diplomatic initiative of its own among its neighbors. But Iraq's overtures have elicited largely tepid responses from several nations it has considered to be strong allies, according to Arab diplomats and analysts. Over the past week, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri visited four Persian Gulf nations to urge them not to allow their soil to be used by the United States as a launch pad for attacks against Iraq. The nations -- Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar -- all host U.S. troops who could participate in a possible military strike on Iraq. Aziz has attempted to shore up support on Iraq's other flank, traveling to Syria and Lebanon this week and to Turkey last week. Delivering a similar message in the four Persian Gulf capitals he visited, Sabri implored Iraq's neighbors to display "solidarity and wisdom" and spare the region "the catastrophes of war." Although Sabri has received public pledges of support from the leaders he has visited, diplomats and analysts said he failed to elicit the commitments of unconditional backing that he had hoped to obtain. They said the Iraqi envoy was told that there was little the gulf nations could do to prevent U.S. military action and that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's best chance of averting a war would be to fully abide by U.N. demands. Meanwhile, in Washington, the Pentagon issued orders to the Army's V Corps and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to deploy headquarters staffs to Kuwait, marking the first nonroutine dispatch of conventional ground forces to the Persian Gulf region in anticipation of possible military action against Iraq, defense officials said Friday. The move will bring to the gulf hundreds of Army and Marine planners who would coordinate any thrust by land forces into Iraq.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
