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Iraq promises to meet weapons declaration deadline
( 2002-11-20 08:12 ) (7 )

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix(L) and Mohamed el Baradei (R), director of the International Atomic Energy Agency attend a press conference in Baghdad November 19, 2002. Iraq vowed on Tuesday to produce a full account of its weapons program by December 8 and said U.N. arms inspectors would be given unfettered access to all sites across the country. [Reuters]

Iraq promised Tuesday to meet next month's deadline for disclosing information about banned weapons. Fulfilling that pledge would meet a key demand laid down in the new UN resolution aimed at peacefully disarming Iraq.

Differences also emerged today between the United Nations and Washington over what constitutes Iraqi violations of the UN resolution, which authorized the inspection mission.

Following a meeting with UN weapons inspectors, Amir al-Saadi, a senior adviser to President Saddam Hussein, told reporters that Baghdad had repeated assurances that it would cooperate fully with the inspection team, which arrived Monday under terms of a new UN resolution mandating unrestricted access to all Iraqi sites.

"Within 30 days, as the resolution says, a report from Iraq will be submitted on all the files of nuclear, chemical, biological and missile files," al-Saadi said, speaking in English.

Asked whether Iraq was prepared to grant the inspectors unfettered access, he replied: "Yes, as stipulated in the resolution and as we have agreed with them."

Saddam's Last Chance

Earlier, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iraqi officials made the commitment during talks with chief UN inspector Hans Blix and other team members Monday.

"We hope that this oral commitment will be translated into fact when we begin inspections next week," he told Associated Press Television News and Egypt's Nile television.

President Bush has threatened military action if the Iraqis fail to cooperate fully with the new Security Council resolution.

Blix and ElBaradei met today with al-Saadi; Foreign Minister Naji Sabri; Gen. Hossam Amin, the Iraqi government's chief liaison with past UN inspectors; and senior Foreign Ministry official Said al-Mosawi.

Blix and ElBaradei also met Monday with Amin and al-Saadi to begin to discuss arrangements for the inspections.

The UN team must verify that Iraq is free of proscribed weapons before the UN Security Council will lift strict economic sanctions imposed after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The inspections are considered Saddam's last chance to avoid war with the United States, which has said toppling him might be the only way to contain the threat it believes Iraq poses to the world with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Defining a Violation

On Monday, allied warplanes bombed Iraqi air defense systems in the northern no-fly zone. The US military said the attack was launched after Iraqi gunners fired on the jets during routine patrols.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Iraqi anti-aircraft fire "appears to be a violation" of the latest UN Security Council resolution.

However, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan took issue with that interpretation, telling reporters in Kosovo today that "I don't think the Council will say that this is in contravention of the resolution that was recently passed."

The Iraqi military said today that a US-British airstrike in southern Iraq a day earlier wounded four civilians. The US military did not comment immediately. The allies say they do not target civilians.

Bush has warned of "zero tolerance" of Iraqi infractions, warning they could lead to war. Iraq considers flights over the northern and southern zones a violation of its sovereignty; the Security Council never explicitly approved the operation that began shortly after the 1991 Persian Gulf War to protect Kurdish and Shiite Muslim groups.

Annan's interpretation, widely held within the 15-member Council, is another example of the differences between UN and US officials over the inspection program.

The Americans are pushing for early, intrusive inspections of presidential palaces and other sensitive sites, while UN authorities are speaking of building trust between the inspectors and the Iraqis.

The Message: A Mission of Peace

Mark Gwozdecky, spokesman for the UN nuclear controls agency, said the team has come "with a message ... [that] we are on a mission of peace" to overcome Iraqi hostility to the inspection program.

"So we tried to convey this message that `let's start from scratch, let's cooperate fully and if we do it holds prospect for a lifting of sanctions on the Iraqi people and a peaceful resolution,"' he said.

Gwozdecky said that if the Iraqis cooperate, the inspectors should "have a very good feel" for Iraqi weapons programs "within a year."

The inspectors have returned under a tough UN Security Council resolution to search for weapons wherever they like and talk to whoever they want to determine if Iraq has banned weapons.

Iraqi officials, though pledging cooperation, have made clear their hostility toward the resolution.

The official Iraqi News Agency quoted Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan as saying Iraq accepted the resolution "despite its injustice" to prove it is free of weapons of mass destruction.

"This resolution is an evil American scheme for an aggression against Iraq," INA quoted Ramadan as saying during a meeting Monday with an Austrian delegation.

Saddam's deputy, Izzat Ibrahim, told INA that Iraq will work with inspectors to protect its people from America, but will fight "if war is imposed on us."