U.S. Seeks U.N. Meeting on Nuclear Equipment in Iraq : Inspections: Hussein clearly balks at allowing access to installations. Security Council may convene Friday.

The Bush Administration pressed for an early emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council after a special high-level mission apparently failed Tuesday to gain access to suspected Iraqi uranium enrichment equipment.

The three-man mission was scheduled to depart from Baghdad today and report to U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who is in Europe. But as it became clear that the government of Saddam Hussein was balking at allowing U.N. nuclear inspectors free and immediate access to suspected nuclear installations, the five permanent members of the Security Council met at U.N. headquarters to consider strategy.

Western diplomats said the Security Council could meet as early as Thursday, but probably will convene on Friday, to consider what additional steps to take to force compliance with the resolution ending the Persian Gulf War.

Under the terms of the resolution, Iraq is required to report and make available to inspectors all its weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear bomb-making materials, so they can be eliminated.

Last Friday, after Iraqi guards fired over the heads of inspectors seeking to enter a military base near Fallouja--the third attempt in less than a week to block U.N. personnel from viewing suspected nuclear enrichment materials--the Security Council condemned the conduct of Iraqi authorities.

To press its point that Iraq was committing flagrant violations of the conditions ending the war and to demand free access to all suspected nuclear facilities, council members dispatched a top level team to Baghdad.

The team was composed of Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish diplomat heading the special commission in charge of finding and eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; Hans Blix, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Undersecretary General Yasushi Akashi, head of the U.N.’s department of disarmament affairs.

But on Tuesday, in reports from Baghdad that were relayed to U.N. officials in New York, it became clear the team was making little progress.

U.S. sources said the inspectors were shown some nuclear-related materials and a lot of empty trucks, but not the large convoy believed to be carrying calutrons, World War II devices designed to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons. The United States decades ago abandoned the calutron method for more sophisticated technology.

According to news dispatches from Baghdad, Blix said Iraqi authorities produced for inspection the remains of nuclear research materials that Iraqi authorities already had destroyed.

“Iraq’s behavior definitely does not inspire confidence,” Blix was quoted as telling the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladat.

The U.N. delegation met Tuesday with Iraqi officials including Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein, Defense Minister Hussein Kamel and Said Mousawi, the head of Iraq’s Atomic Energy Commission.

But Western diplomats in New York indicated the meetings did not produce the results the delegation sought. And one U.N. participant was quoted in a Reuters news agency report from Baghdad as describing the session as “awful,” with Iraqi officials “talking in circles.”

Unless there is a last-minute change in the Iraqi strategy, the officials are expected to present Perez de Cuellar with a very negative assessment of their talks.

A statement by the Security Council president authorizing the mission stressed that Iraq had committed “flagrant violations” of the resolution ending the war. The council warned that “any recurrence of noncompliance” would have serious consequences.

That message has been reinforced repeatedly by President Bush over the last few days in warnings to Baghdad that military force may again be used if Iraq does not comply with the terms of the agreement ending the war.