U.S. Cancels Aerospace Trade Trip to Iraq : Mideast: The move comes after Baghdad expels an American diplomat. Bilateral ties reach a five-year low.

American relations with Iraq plunged to their lowest point in five years Monday as the Bush Administration canceled an aerospace trade mission to Baghdad a few hours after Iraq expelled a U.S. diplomat.

Commerce Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Dugan said Iraq was stricken from the itinerary of a Middle East trip by representatives of nine aerospace firms “in light of the events of the last couple of weeks.”

In Baghdad, the Iraqi government, in a statement monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus, said the unidentified American diplomat was expelled in retaliation for the ouster Friday of an Iraqi diplomat at the United Nations. The Iraqi was accused of participating in an assassination plot in California.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, quoted by Iraq’s official news agency, said the charges against the Iraqi have “no basis in truth.”

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater called Iraq’s expulsion order “inappropriate (and) unjustified.”

Relations between Washington and Baghdad, which were re-established in 1985, have been on a downward spiral since the Iran-Iraq War ended in August, 1988.

Last month, U.S. and British customs officers seized 40 electronic triggers for nuclear weapons from an Iraqi-bound airliner. Iraq denied that it is trying to develop nuclear bombs.

Later, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein confirmed that his government has a chemical weapons program. And he threatened to use poison gas against Israel if Israel attacks his nation.

Last Friday, a federal grand jury in Sacramento indicted an Iraqi diplomat and a former doorman at Iraq’s U.N. mission on charges of plotting to kill two Hussein opponents. The diplomat was expelled.

Neither the Iraqi nor the American diplomat affected by the expulsions has been identified by name. However, a State Department source said the Iraqi was a first secretary at Iraq’s U.N. mission in New York. Presumably, the American is of similarly senior rank.

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler declined to say whether the United States will expel another Iraqi in retaliation for the American’s ouster.

Fitzwater said, “We, of course, are greatly concerned about Iraqi actions on a number of fronts, particularly their use of chemical weapons.” However, he said the Administration is not, at least for now, considering further downgrading of ties with Iraq.

In Baghdad, the Foreign Ministry said the Sacramento indictments are part of an anti-Iraqi campaign by Western countries.

Kempster reported from Washington and Williams from Nicosia.