Top inspectors reluctant to return to Iraq without concessions

Top UN arms inspectors said they would not agree to new talks in Baghdad unless Iraq demonstrated more cooperation and met unspecified conditions. One hinted it might be necessary to meet Saddam Hussein to resolve the crisis.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear agency, and chief inspector Hans Blix were invited by the Iraqis to return for talks before their crucial report to the UN Security Council on February 14.

In New York, Dr Blix said he spelled out conditions for a new meeting in a letter to the Iraqis. His spokesman, Ewen Buchanan, said the inspectors would agree to a meeting “once certain understandings are reached” on how to resolve disarmament issues.

Dr ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iraq must remove major obstacles, allow inspectors to interview scientists in private and agree to the use of U-2 surveillance planes.

“We need to make sure before we go that they are ready to move forward on these issues,” ElBaradei told reporters in Vienna.

The Baghdad meeting would give Iraq the chance to accept UN demands before the February 14 report and possibly buy time before a threatened US-led attack.

In Washington, US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Saddam was not disarming and the world must hold him to account. “This is a test of the international community,” Mr Blair said.

Both Dr Blix and Dr ElBaradei hinted that they would respond favourably to the Iraqi invitation if they could meet the country’s senior leaders, perhaps including Saddam himself, rather than the lower-ranking aides and advisers with whom they held talks last month.

“It’s very important that ... we meet at the highest level of the leadership, and hear from them a clear commitment,” Dr ElBaradei said.

Dr Blix said if the Iraqis suggested a meeting with Saddam, ”we would describe the situation, the dangerous situation, and the main theme that we have - cooperation in substance.”

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iraq’s foreign minister claimed the US – in its ”feverish desire to launch war” – might use its ”technological superiority” to plant evidence that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

Foreign Minister Naji Sabri also demanded that the United States present proof that Iraq was still holding banned weapons.

“The American administration has in the past presented more than one report that is filled with claims and accusations that lack any evidence,” Sabri said.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has pledged to present evidence about Iraq’s programmes before the UN Security Council on February 5.

In their invitation to Drs Blix and ElBaradei, Iraq offered to discuss key unresolved issues, including private interviews with scientists and surveillance flights. It was not immediately clear, however, if new concessions had been offered.

Major General Hossam Mohammed Amin, chief Iraqi liaison officer with the inspectors, said Iraq would not oppose flights by U-2 aircraft, as requested by the UN, as long as the US and Britain stop patrols over the “no-fly” zones of southern and northern Iraq while the spy planes are in the air.

That way, he said, Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries would not mistake the reconnaissance plane for American and British jets and fire on it.

The no-fly zones have been enforced by the UK and US since 1991 to protect Iraqi Kurds in the north and Shi’ite Muslims in the south from Iraq’s army.

On the issue of private interviews, Amin repeated the Iraqi position that it was the scientists themselves who refused to talk to inspectors without an Iraqi official present.

“It’s up to each scientist,” Amin said. “It’s a question of personal freedom.”

The US maintains that the government has threatened scientists with death if they agree to private interviews.