U.S. Verifies Iraqi Missile Pullback : Mideast: Clearing skies over the ‘no-fly zone’ allow satellites to confirm removal. Threat of air strikes eases, but Baghdad gets warning on continued defiance of U.N.

The White House said Saturday that Baghdad has moved its missiles out of threatening positions in the “no-fly zone” of southern Iraq, ending the prospect of imminent U.S. military action. But it warned President Saddam Hussein to stop defying other U.N. demands or face “serious consequences.”

Washington’s decision not to launch an attack was announced by White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, who said in a statement that clearing weather early Saturday enabled U.S. spy satellites to confirm that “Iraq is acceding” to an ultimatum by the United States and key allies Britain, France and Russia.

“Once again, Saddam Hussein has backed down in the face of (allied) coalition solidarity,” the statement said. “Iraq remains isolated and a pariah among nations, due to its flagrant attempts to violate the cease-fire (that ended the Persian Gulf War).”

But Fitzwater warned that the ultimatum issued Wednesday remains in effect and that the United States will continue to scrutinize Iraqi activity in the no-fly zone. He said no further warning will be issued before action is taken if Iraq violates the allied decree again.

The Administration also issued a stern demand that Iraq cooperate with other U.N. requirements--particularly that Baghdad rescind a Friday decision to bar U.N. weapons inspection teams from landing in Iraq in their planes.

Administration officials said Washington will push for new consultations in the U.N. Security Council this week to intensify pressure on Iraq--possibly with another formal threat of military action if necessary--to stop interfering with U.N. operations inside that country.

Besides U.N. weapons inspection teams, the White House cited activities of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which also is inspecting Iraq’s weapons arsenal; the U.N. Iraq-Kuwait boundary commission, which is trying to resolve border disputes, and allied-run humanitarian relief missions to the Kurdish population of northern Iraq.

Saturday’s combination of events eased the immediate threat of a possible U.S. military air strike against Iraq, but tensions between the two countries remained at a seven-month high, and the prospect was raised that American forces still might attack Iraqi territory at any time without notice.

Administration officials declined to speculate whether the reduced threat of military action would last at least through the inauguration of President-elect Bill Clinton on Jan. 20. “In a sense, it’s up to (the Iraqis),” a senior policy-maker said.

In Little Rock, Ark., a spokesman for Clinton said the incoming leader would have no further comment on the situation. President Bush spent the weekend at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., where he received regular briefings on the situation from his advisers.

Clinton had told reporters late Friday that Hussein had received “a remarkable reprieve” and said he hoped the Iraqi leader “won’t put us in this position again.” He said that any Hussein hopes that Clinton would be easier on him would be “a serious misreading of our political system.”

Meanwhile, despite its action pulling back its missiles, the Iraqi government maintained a defiant posture for home consumption--a position analysts say has become standard procedure whenever Baghdad is forced to back down in the face of Western threats.

Abdul-Jabbar Mohsen, Hussein’s press secretary, called on the Iraqi people to prepare for an “honorable holy war” against the allies. He said Iraqis “have no choice but to resist and fight for survival.”

Saturday’s announcement followed 14 hours of uncertainty after heavy rains and cloud cover over the no-fly zone prevented U.S. spy satellites from tracking the movement of Iraqi missiles by the Friday deadline (2:15 p.m. PST) that the allies had imposed.

Pentagon officials said Saturday that although not all the offending missiles had been returned to their pre-confrontation positions, enough of them had been dispersed far enough away--and had been broken down for transit--that they no longer posed a threat to allied air patrols over the zone.

They also said no Iraqi aircraft had penetrated the zone since Wednesday’s ultimatum and that all the warplanes Iraq moved last month to a base near the no-fly zone to test the allied resolve had been flown back to central Iraq.

The allies’ Wednesday ultimatum followed several weeks of incidents in which Iraqi aircraft deliberately flew close to the 32nd Parallel--the northern boundary of the no-fly zone--apparently to provoke allied pilots.

The provocations came to a head Dec. 27 when U.S. fighter jets shot down an Iraqi MIG-25 that had trespassed below the 32nd Parallel and defied U.S. warnings to turn back.

Iraq later moved SA-2 and SA-3 antiaircraft missiles in position to shoot down allied planes.

The allied ultimatum essentially gave Iraq 48 hours to return its missiles to their original sites and stop flying into the no-fly zone. But cloud cover shrouded the Iraqis’ activities until early Saturday.

The no-fly zone was established Aug. 26 by the United States, Britain, France and Russia to help keep Iraq from harassing rebel Shiite Muslims who have lived for centuries in the country’s southern marshes. A similar zone had long before been proclaimed north of the 36th Parallel to protect the Kurds.

Administration and private analysts have said that Hussein intensified his provocations in recent days to test U.S. resolve while Washington is preoccupied with the presidential transition and with U.S. military operations in Somalia.

The Bush Administration has been increasingly frustrated by the Iraqi leader’s actions since June, when he forced the United Nations to compromise by refusing for several weeks to let a U.N. weapons inspection team enter an Agriculture Ministry records repository in Baghdad.

Late Friday, after Iraq announced that it would no longer let the weapons inspectors travel to Iraq in U.N. planes, the Security Council issued a blunt statement warning Baghdad that it must comply with all U.N. requirements or risk “serious consequences.”

Fitzwater’s statement Saturday said that “we (the United States) underscore the Security Council’s warnings.”

He said the latest episode “should make clear to Iraq that interference with U.N. and coalition operations . . . will not be tolerated.”