Iraq OKs Tough Cease-Fire Plan : War’s wake: Baghdad reluctantly agrees to U.N. order to dismantle missiles, destroy chemical and nuclear weapons. Pact sets the stage for U.S. withdrawal.

Iraq on Saturday reluctantly accepted tough U.N. conditions for a permanent cease-fire, setting the stage for withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces from southern Iraq in the coming weeks if not days.

The cease-fire conditions require Iraq to dismantle its missiles, destroy stocks of chemical and nuclear weapons and obligate part of its oil revenues to pay war reparations for its invasion of Kuwait, including the cost of environmental damage from oil spills and fires.

The Iraqi Parliament voted to accept U.N. Security Council Resolution 687, outlining the terms of the cease-fire, in a closed-door vote Saturday evening in Baghdad. Before the vote, the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, Saadi Medhi Saleh described the resolution as “unjust” but said his defeated country has “no alternative (but) to accept it.”

In Houston, President Bush said that if Iraq complies with the cease-fire terms, “that will enable us to move more quickly to remove our forces from southern Iraq.” Once U.N. peacekeeping forces arrive in southern Iraq, American forces will leave the country “in a matter of days,” Bush pledged.

At the same time, however, Bush said it is possible that a small number of U.S. troops would take part in the U.N. force. The idea “has not been finalized,” Bush said, but, in any case, “there would not be a lot of U.S. troops involved.”

The comment was the first official suggestion of an American role in the peacekeeping force.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein notified the United Nations of Baghdad’s acceptance of the terms in an argumentative 23-page letter that urged immediate removal of U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq. In recent days, Iraqi officials have said that the country’s civilian population was in great distress and in some cases on the verge of starvation because of continuing embargoes on food and other essentials.

The next step in the cease-fire process will be for the United Nations to deploy military observer teams inside Iraq to supervise implementation of the resolution’s conditions and to secure a six-mile-deep demilitarized zone along the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border.

Some U.N. officials said observers could begin to arrive along the troubled border within 48 hours after the Security Council approves Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar’s plans. But it would be a symbolic presence until larger numbers of U.N. peacekeepers are mobilized, which could take several more days.

U.S. military commanders said the withdrawal of the estimated 100,000 American troops in Iraq could be accomplished in 72 hours once the U.N. teams are in place.

Although no one expects it to proceed that quickly, the establishment of a permanent cease-fire and withdrawal of coalition troops could take less than one week if there are no political hitches.

In Iraq, the cease-fire conditions were a bitter pill to swallow for the regime of President Saddam Hussein and his ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party.

“We are forced to accept the resolution in order to foil the American-NATO-Zionist conspiracy against Iraq,” concluded a statement issued by the Iraqi Parliament’s Legal and Foreign Affairs Committee.

A Saturday editorial in the Iraqi newspaper Al Jumhuriyah commented:

“(The resolution) mortgages Iraq’s capabilities and resources to the U.S. Administration, thus allowing it to deal with them in a spirit of hatred and aggression.”

In what was widely interpreted as an effort to close his political ranks after the clearest acknowledgment yet of Iraq’s defeat, Hussein promoted cousin and son-in-law Hussein Kamel Hassan to the key job of defense minister.

Hassan’s brother, Ali Hassan Majeed, was named interior minister in March. Both men come from Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, 100 miles north of Baghdad, which is the key town in the closely knit family and tribal network that Hussein has used to maintain control over the Baath Party. The new defense minister, a former presidential bodyguard who is married to the Iraqi leader’s eldest daughter, replaces Iran-Iraq War hero Saadi Tuma Abbas Jubouri.

The Iraqi letter formally accepting the cease-fire terms was delivered to the president of the Security Council and to Perez de Cuellar.

The letter complained that the Security Council’s requirement that Iraq accept as permanent the border with Kuwait arranged on a provisional basis in October, 1963, is unfair and impinges upon Iraqi sovereignty.

“The Security Council has imposed a border on Iraq,” ignoring any chance for Iraq and Kuwait to solve the issue by negotiations, the letter charged.

On the requirement that Iraq destroy chemical and biological weapons and most ballistic missiles, Baghdad’s letter argued that Iraq is being singled out while Israel maintains such weapons.

But reluctantly yielding to the demands, Foreign Minister Hussein wrote: “At the same time as Iraq has mentioned these legal and principal points, Iraq has found itself facing only one choice to accept this resolution.”

One high-ranking U.S. diplomat at the United Nations underscored the point.

“(They) accept it. That’s the bottom line,” the diplomat said. “We think the secretary general will call the council into session on Monday to inform members Iraq has accepted the resolution and will inform the council of his plans for a border observation team.”

Bush said the Iraqi acceptance letter “appears to be positive” but said U.S. officials had not studied the full text.

He showed little sympathy for the Iraqi complaints, saying the letter contains “some griping about the severity of the U.N. conditions, but that is just too bad. Saddam Hussein is in no position, in my view, to barter.”

The objections in the Iraqi letter may be simply “front-end rhetoric,” Bush added.

Administration officials noted that the letter is important only as a signal of Iraqi intentions. “It has no importance as a policy matter,” one official said, noting that the cease-fire resolution the U.N. Security Council passed last week sets up a strict timetable of actions Iraq must take before economic sanctions will be lifted.

Meanwhile, the flow of Kurdish refugees into Iran and Turkish border areas continued unabated Saturday. Turkey has reported that more than 250,000 refugees have crossed its frontier, which it has tried unsuccessfully to close to halt the massive flow of Kurds fleeing northward. The Turkish foreign minister said Saturday that an estimated 1,500 Kurds have died making the trek through the frozen mountain terrain. Turkish officials estimate that another 150,000 refugees are headed their way.

Iranian officials said that more than 200,000 Iraqi Kurds have crossed into Iran’s Bakhtaran Province through the Nowsoud border checkpoint. Iran’s official news agency reported that an additional 400,000 Kurds are massed outside border stations in Baneh and Marivan.

“Hungry and dressed in shabby clothes,” the Islamic Republic News Agency reported, “another 400,000 Kurds, driven away from their ancestral lands by Iraqi military forces, have formed a 20-kilometer (12-mile) queue . . . awaiting permission to enter Iran.”

Throughout the Kurds’ ordeal, Kurdish groups all over the world have appealed for the United States and coalition allies to intervene in the battle with superior Iraqi military forces. Anti-Iraqi demonstrations and marches took place Saturday in many world capitals.

The withdrawal of the coalition forces would probably remove the last lingering hope for outside military help.

Today, the United States and Britain are set to begin airlifting and airdropping emergency supplies to the fleeing Kurdish population. Support for the C-130 cargo aircraft making the drops will be provided by U.S. Air Force fighter planes.

Iraq has made it clear that it does not appreciate the humanitarian aid or the airlift. Baghdad says that government troops have been welcomed into cities of predominantly Kurdish Zakhu province by massive demonstrations “celebrating the return of stability to the north of the country.

“The masses raised pictures of President Saddam Hussein and banners saluting the historic, intelligent leadership of Iraq and the role of our victorious armed forces,” the official Iraqi News Agency reported.

Times staff writers John J. Goldman, at the United Nations, and David Lauter, in Houston, contributed to this story.