Iraq Backs Down, Agrees to Destroy Its Missile Plants : Weapons: The move averts a crisis that might have led to U.S. air strikes. Saddam Hussein’s government, in a letter to the U.N., admits having bigger stores of arms.

Iraq yielded to the warnings of the United Nations on Friday and agreed to start destroying its Scud missile factories under the eyes of inspectors in the next few days.

The government of Saddam Hussein also acknowledged that it possessed a larger number of chemical and ballistic weapons than had been disclosed.

This dramatic softening of Iraqi intransigence immediately averted a crisis that might have led to an American air strike against the facilities. Although there was some suspicion that it might have been blustering and bluffing, the Bush Administration had moved enough air power and firepower into the Persian Gulf region to make the threat real.

The news of the change in Iraqi policy came from Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish diplomat who heads the U.N. Special Commission charged with overseeing the elimination of Iraq’s most lethal weapons. He said that an official Iraqi letter giving in to the U.N. demands had been delivered to him by Iraqi Ambassador Abdul Amir Anbari.

“At last . . . an example of a concrete deed,” Ekeus told a news conference. “This is the first time since I got this job that I am able to provide good news.”

Once the holy days of Ramadan end in April, Ekeus said, the Iraqis promised to provide “the full, final and complete” accounting of all their weapons programs, including a list of foreign suppliers.

“Now we are satisfied,” the U.N. official went on, “there are undertakings that the Iraqis are willing to go along with destruction . . . they have not done before.” He called this “a new attitude from Iraq.”

At the Pentagon, the Iraqis’ gesture appeared to quiet talk of a resumption of hostilities. But officials continued to say that sufficient forces are in the Persian Gulf region to conduct extensive strikes against Iraqi targets.

Meanwhile, one key lawmaker on Friday expressed reluctance to back a resumption of hostilities.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), a leader in last year’s fight to secure Senate approval of the Persian Gulf War, said Friday that he believes the Bush Administration has not justified a resumption of hostilities against Iraq.

“The facts today do not present . . . that clear and convincing case” for such a move, Warner said. Speaking at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Warner added that the Administration should seek Congress’ approval to use further force against Iraq.

Ekeus said that a team of U.N. inspectors, scheduled to arrive in Baghdad today, will start supervising the destruction of machinery and other equipment used in the manufacture of missiles. It also will try to verify the new count of weapons.

U.N. officials have long suspected that Hussein was hiding some Scud missiles and chemical nerve gas warheads that Iraq was ordered to destroy under the U.N. cease-fire resolutions that ended the Gulf War.

Ekeus would not reveal the numbers but said that Iraq “now has declared a substantial amount more of weapons.” He called this “very important new information” that appeared to match the estimates of the commission. He added, however, that Iraq claimed that it already had destroyed the extra Scud missiles it was now declaring. Ekeus said his inspectors will look for evidence of this.

In an extraordinary appearance before the Security Council last week, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz protested that much of the missile manufacturing equipment slated for destruction by orders of Ekeus and his commission could be transformed to make civilian products or non-prohibited arms. He asked the council for the right to appeal decisions of the commission. But the council rejected the request.

The stubbornness of Iraq had led to a bellicose atmosphere in Washington that continued even as Ekeus was holding his news conference in New York. Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called for an ultimatum to Iraq to cooperate with the United Nations or face air strikes by the United States and its Gulf War allies.

Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, brushed aside news stories that claimed he opposed using military force against Hussein now. “If we are called upon to be a part of this solution,” Powell told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “we will perform our role in an absolutely professional way with desired results.”

Powell repeated his longstanding preference for operations that bring devastating force to bear against adversaries. Knowledgeable sources have suggested that Powell may have reservations about resuming hostilities when so few ground troops are in the area. In recent days, however, the number of warplanes in the Persian Gulf has been increased as fresh F-4 fighters and F-117 Stealth fighters have been brought in to replace units scheduled to depart from Saudi Arabia.

“The only recommendations I give are for decisive action: overwhelming use of power when necessary with as little risk as possible,” Powell said.

The confrontation over the missile factories is the latest in a series of crises over the last year in which Iraq has balked at orders from the U.N. Special Commission only to back down later under threats from the Security Council. In the most histrionic incident, Iraqi soldiers kept U.N. inspectors under siege in a Baghdad parking lot for four days last September after the officials seized a mass of documents detailing Hussein’s plans for making nuclear weapons.

Ekeus, however, did not treat the latest backing down by Iraq as just another maneuver in what U.S. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering has called Iraq’s cat-and-mouse game with the United Nations. Instead, Ekeus, who has often brought the Security Council and reporters tidings of bad news, seemed to look on the Iraqi letter as a genuine breakthrough. This time he praised the Iraqi government’s “goodwill.”

But the letter evidently did not shed much light on how Iraq intends to comply with the U.N. resolution setting up permanent inspection of that country to make sure it never renews its programs for making weapons of mass destruction. Aziz described this plan as an infringement upon the sovereignty of Iraq.

Ekeus said the Iraqi letter still did not accept the resolution, but it did provide the commission with some ideas about what Baghdad thought could be included in a long-term monitoring program.

The United Nations will get clearer soundings of the sincerity of Iraqi cooperation in the days ahead when the inspectors start supervising the destruction of the missile factories.

Ekeus has provided a list to Iraq of the materials at four different sites that must be destroyed, including welders, lathes, computers, hydraulic presses, drums of chemicals and, in some cases, the factory buildings themselves. Not all of this is to be done during the stay of the inspection team, which ends March 26. But Ekeus has told the Iraqis to come up with plans for all this destruction during the visit of the inspectors.

The issue about numbers of missiles is a complex one. The Soviet Union sold more than 800 Scud missiles to Iraq several years ago. Iraq fired 80 Scuds at Israel and Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War and an unknown number during its long war with Iran. After the Gulf War cease-fire a little more than a year ago, Iraq declared that it still had 62 Scud missiles, which it destroyed under U.N. supervision.

Some inspectors believed that this still left a number of missiles unaccounted for. The Iraqi letter to Ekeus confirmed this suspicion. But Ekeus said that the Iraqis claim they destroyed these Scuds on their own last summer without U.N. supervision.

Times staff writer Melissa Healy contributed to this report from Washington.