Allies to Warn Iraq on Buildup Near Kurd Area

Iraq has bolstered its troop buildup near Kurdish territory with a significant increase in firepower and surface-to-air missiles that could threaten U.S. and allied military aircraft that control skies in the region, U.S. officials said Friday.

The United States, Britain and France plan to protest both the buildup and renewed Iraqi attacks against Iraq’s Kurdish population in tough warnings slated for delivery at the United Nations early next week, diplomatic sources said.

“I suspect he (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) would do well to pay attention to this demarche,” a senior U.S. official said.

The United States and its allies have controlled the skies north of the 36th Parallel in northern Iraq, barring any Iraqi flights over the territory, since shortly after an anti-Kurdish crackdown last spring in the wake of the Persian Gulf War.

The Iraqi buildup has occurred as the United Nations and Iraq head for a showdown as early as next week on destruction of buildings at Iraq’s nuclear weapons development site at Al Atheer.

A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency is to arrive in Iraq on Tuesday or Wednesday to supervise destruction of the facilities. Iraq so far has not indicated whether it will cooperate.

Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish diplomat in charge of U.N. efforts to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, told the Security Council on Friday that while Baghdad recently revealed some new data on its arms holdings, much remains to be done to implement the Gulf War cease-fire resolutions.