U-2 makes second flight over Iraq

Iraq has allowed another flight by a US U-2 spy plane as President Saddam Hussein’s government sought to convince the world that it is co-operating with UN weapons inspectors.

In New York, a UN spokesman said yesterday that Baghdad had also submitted a list of people reportedly involved in the destruction of banned weapons, fulfilling a key demand by chief weapons inspector Hans Blix.

It was the second flight this week by a U-2 in support of the UN inspection programme. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said the plane spent six hours and 20 minutes over Iraq’s territory, searching for evidence of banned weapons.

Iraq allowed the first U-2 flight on Monday after resisting such flights since the inspection programme resumed in November. Iraq had insisted that US and British planes suspend patrols in the “no-fly” zones during U-2 missions but relented as pressure mounted on Baghdad to display more co-operation with the inspection programme.

The US and Britain have disputed Iraq’s claims that it no longer holds weapons of mass destruction or long-range missiles, which were banned under a UN resolution approved after Baghdad’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War.

US President George W Bush has threatened military action to disarm the Iraqis. The US and Britain have massed nearly 200,000 troops in the region to reinforce that warning, despite widespread international opposition to war.

Washington and London plan to offer a new Iraq-war resolution to the Security Council next week, a senior Bush administration official said. But they face an uphill battle in getting the nine votes for approval.

With pressure mounting, Iraq has complied with a long-standing UN demand and turned over the names of people who took part in the destruction of banned material from its biological and missile programmes, a UN spokesman said yesterday.

Iraq had already submitted a list of 83 people who it said took part in the destruction of banned chemical weapons and materials.

“Since then, the Iraqis have provided lists of individuals involved in unilateral destruction of biological and missile items in the early 1990s,” said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for Mr Blix.

“Those lists are being studied, and clearly might be potential names for interviews.”

Iraq has claimed to have destroyed chemical and biological weapons as well as long-range missiles but lacks documents to prove it. Mr Blix had said that if the documents are unavailable, the inspectors want to talk to people who carried out the destruction.

With the threat of war hanging over the country, Saddam met yesterday with top aides and military commanders to discuss “the preparations of our courageous armed forces and of the Iraqi people to confront the US threats of aggression”, the Iraqi News Agency reported.

“They also discussed ways to enhance Iraqis’ capabilities ... enabling them to inflict defeat on the evil aggressors,” the agency said.

For the sixth straight month, Iraqis drew double rations yesterday, part of an expanded rations system designed to prepare citizens for a long war. Iraq has been handing out food rations to its people since 1990, when the UN imposed sanctions on the oil-rich country for its occupation of neighbouring Kuwait.

Meanwhile, four US military transport planes carrying troops and equipment landed near Romania’s Black Sea coast last night, airport officials said. The flights appeared to be the first concrete sizeable deployments of troops and equipment to Romania either directly for the Iraq campaign or in a support role.