NEWS ANALYSIS : Hussein Trusts No One--and the Feeling Is Mutual : Iraq: His credibility is at a low ebb as he promises U.N. inspectors free access to track nuclear materials.

Western reporters who have interviewed Saddam Hussein over the years tell the same bizarre story: They are strip-searched, supplied pen and paper by the palace, and, just before meeting the Iraqi leader, are asked to dip their hands in a bowl of liquid, presumably disinfectant.

Opinions vary. Either this is ritual humiliation to give Hussein a psychological edge in the coming encounter. Or this is a man who trusts no one.

There is evidence to support the second conclusion. On those rare instances when the president travels outside Iraq, usually for Arab summits, his party brings its own food and a taster for added insurance. Arab journalists insist that the Iraqi baggage also includes a special chair for Hussein, reputedly to protect the presidential backside from poisoned tacks.

Trust is a rare commodity in the Middle East, and there is none between Hussein and his Arab adversaries. In the West, the 54-year-old Iraqi strongman has the credibility of a Central Park mugger.

Two current issues illustrate the point: Baghdad’s negotiations on Kurdish autonomy and the United Nations’ efforts to hold Hussein to the letter of his cease-fire commitments on disclosing his country’s nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities.

“Iraq’s behavior definitely does not inspire confidence,” remarked Hans Blix, secretary general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who went to Baghdad last week to investigate charges that Hussein’s regime was hiding nuclear material and equipment from cease-fire inspectors. His comment capped a sequence of suspicious events.

After the presentation to the Security Council of what President Bush and other U.S. officials said was “incontrovertible evidence” of Iraqi cheating on nuclear disclosure, a U.N. team made a surprise visit to an army base outside Baghdad looking for the goods.

The U.N. team was stalled at the front gate while a convoy of tarpaulined trucks high-tailed it out the back.

Despite Hussein’s subsequent public pledge of full cooperation with the inspectors--a promise he repeated in a personal letter to the U.N. secretary general, which was made public Friday--Blix said: “We have not been given a satisfactory clarification of what was on the convoy.” The Iraqis later showed him “something that was of interest,” he admitted, but declared, “What we saw . . . does not solve the problem.”

Under the U.N. cease-fire resolution that formally ended the Persian Gulf War, Iraq is required to fully disclose its stocks of any nuclear, biological and chemical weapons materials--Baghdad admits possessing only that last category--or face a continuing economic embargo. While his country and people desperately need to break out of the blockade, particularly to sell oil, Hussein’s regime has spoiled their chances by trying to cheat on the cease-fire terms, according to accusations by Washington and other Western powers.

When the Iraqi leader concluded a meeting of his ruling Revolutionary Command Council by ordering that “all parties and organs concerned allow, with no hesitation, the U.N. representatives to see or inspect what they wish,” the words fell on Western ears deafened by distrust. Says President Bush, who is openly talking about countering Hussein’s alleged duplicity with military force: “The guy’s lying.”

If he is, the nuclear deception fits a pattern of dubious promises by Baghdad. For instance, in the days after Iraq’s disastrous defeat in the Gulf War, Hussein, dressed in military green with his black beret snugged down, told a nationwide television audience that he would deliver multi-party democracy to the country, that new elections would be held for Parliament and that rule-by-clique through the Revolutionary Command Council would give way to representative government.

The Iraqi people had heard similar pledges before from Hussein, and few believed them. His credibility problem begins at home. Last week, faced with wider doubt, Prime Minister Sadoun Hammadi presented himself for a bit of flackery for his troubled boss. Noting that Bush had questioned Hussein’s honesty, loyal Hammadi assured the official Iraqi News Agency: “President Saddam is one of the few leaders who acts according to principle and maintains high standards of morality and honesty in his words and deeds.”

Earlier, a Foreign Ministry spokesman accused the Bush Administration of inventing the nuclear controversy in a scheme to keep Iraq under economic sanctions. “We categorically deny all these empty allegations and accusations,” he said.

But official denials have not erased Hussein’s image as a schemer himself. On the Security Council, which has the power to lift the sanctions, his word is still in doubt, and that problem is reinforced by the vehement political opposition of the Americans and the British.

They and their allies have squeezed the Iraqis to the point of despair with the economic embargo. Shortages of medicine and certain foods have made life painful across the social strata, excepting the ruling clique and the top military and security ranks.

But the strictures have not dislodged Hussein. Nor have they damaged the relationship between the president and the Iraqi masses, although there never was one beyond that of ruler and ruled.

The Kurds represent one of the few sectors that Hussein has been forced to deal with in the wake of the war. Their negotiations are a portrait of the presidential technique: bend before superior force, then snap back to fill any vacuum. His headstrong commitment to the “mother of all battles” was the grisly exception that proved the pattern.

Hussein crushed the Kurdish rebellion, then turned peacemaker when U.S.-led forces crossed his northern borders to establish sanctuaries. For more than two months, Kurdish and Iraqi officials discussed plans for a broadened autonomy in Kurdistan as American, British, French and Dutch troops established camps and patrolled the skies in the northern provinces. Both sides reported steady progress.

But when the refugee crisis eased and the allied units deployed under Operation Provide Comfort prepared to withdraw, the Kurdish negotiations suddenly faltered. The long bargaining over well-known points was knocked askew as Hussein’s men, sensing a weakened Kurdish position, threw in new conditions. Whether allied progress on Operation Poised Hammer--a new protective force--will make Hussein more pliable again will be clear in coming weeks.

Many Kurdish leaders, particularly Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, will seek Western pressure on Baghdad to stay true to any deals it makes on Kurdistan. They are not likely to take Hussein’s word on it.