U.N. Rejects Iraqi Rules on Weapons Inspection Flights : Persian Gulf: Bush, allies again weigh a second bombing raid. Baghdad would offer safe passage only to planes that did not enter ‘no-fly zones.’

The United Nations on Saturday rejected new Iraqi concessions on flights by U.N. weapons inspectors, prompting the Bush Administration to weigh anew a resumption of allied bombing raids over Iraqi territory.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz said Saturday that his country would grant safe passage to U.N. flights into Iraq.

But he placed new--and ultimately unacceptable--conditions on the weapons inspectors’ travels. Aziz said in Baghdad that the inspectors’ planes must not pass through the “no-fly zones” declared by the United States, France and Britain.

Only if U.N. aircraft enter Iraqi airspace from Jordan will Iraq guarantee their safety, Aziz said.

The conditional offer drew a sharp reaction Saturday night from the U.N. Special Commission that oversees U.N. teams charged with finding and destroying Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

“The response is that the Special Commission cannot operate effectively if it is forced to enter the airspace of Jordan,” said Tim Trevan, the commission’s spokesman. Trevan said Iraq is “obliged” to allow U.N. planes access from whatever point they choose, and he reminded Baghdad of its obligation to “ensure the safety and security of aircraft.”

A determined President Bush, speaking to reporters earlier Saturday at the presidential weekend retreat in Camp David, Md., said the Iraqis are “going to comply with these (U.N.) resolutions, period.” But he said that the United States was “not on the brink” of renewed bombing of Iraq.

Bush said that he was consulting with U.N. and allied leaders Saturday before taking further action.

“We don’t do these things unilaterally,” Bush said. “We consult.”

After the U.N. rejection of the Iraqi bid, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater issued a statement underscoring Bush’s earlier remarks at Camp David.

The latest exchange came four days after the United States, France and Britain launched a limited air strike against Iraqi air-defense missiles and command bunkers in the southern air-exclusion zone. By Friday, tensions again peaked over Iraq’s unwillingness to provide clearance for a flight of U.N. inspectors seeking to enter Iraq on Saturday.

As the weekend began, the U.N. Special Commission had planned to send a flight of its weapons experts into Iraq today. But Trevan said the flight would not proceed as planned unless “we get the guarantee that we require” of its safety.

The U.N. inspectors have been waiting for more than two weeks at their field headquarters in Bahrain for permission to fly into Iraq.

In other developments Saturday:

* Pentagon officials reported for the second day that two SA-3 antiaircraft missiles were back in operation in the southern air-exclusion zone over Iraq. The officials said that alone is likely to provoke a return of allied planes to strike targets in Iraq.

The SA-3 missiles now back in operation in the south were two of three such weapons that American F-117A Stealth aircraft missed in last Wednesday’s strike.

* Pentagon officials confirmed an earlier report that Iraqi antiaircraft guns Friday night shot at two American F-111 jets patrolling the northern no-fly zone over Kurdish areas of Iraq. The planes escaped unharmed. But a Pentagon spokesman said, “We consider any incident of this type to be serious.”

* In the southern no-fly zone as well, Pentagon officials said Saturday there was a single report from an American pilot who said he had been shot at by antiaircraft guns but was not hit.

* American warplanes in Saudi Arabia and aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf remained at a high state of readiness, and more than 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles were prepared for a renewed operation that could strike a wide range of targets inside Iraq.

Several knowledgeable Pentagon officials said they expected a strike to be ordered today unless allied qualms stay Bush’s hand. If it comes, they added, it would probably be a less limited strike than last Wednesday’s.

Knowledgeable officials said some of the Pentagon’s most senior military officers, including Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were disappointed that Bush bowed to British concerns last week and ordered only a limited strike. Powell had recommended a broader plan, including aircraft and cruise missile strikes against targets throughout Iraq. The option of such a strike, which could last two or three days, remains before Bush, military officials said.

Along the nine-mile-wide demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait, Iraq also continued to defy U.N. orders to remove six Iraqi police posts by last Friday. The posts remained in place Saturday, guarded by about 40 armed Iraqi military sentries, and a spokesman for the U.N. monitoring force there warned Saturday that their presence was a violation of U.N. directives.

Baghdad Retreat

Aziz’s comments Saturday marked a retreat from Baghdad’s earlier assertion that while U.N. inspectors were free to travel into Iraq, the regime of President Saddam Hussein could not assure the safety of the U.N. airplanes anywhere within the country’s borders. Aziz said Saturday that as long as the U.N. plane skirted the no-fly zones in the north and south and reached Baghdad via Jordan, the regime now would guarantee its safety.

Aziz stressed that the regime was renewing its vow to challenge allied warplanes with force in a continuing policy of protest against the U.S.-led enforcement of what he called a “unilateral” and “illegitimate” allied ban on Iraqi military flights over the southern third and northern sections of the country.

At the same time, Aziz--one of the regime’s most articulate and influential spokesmen--struck a conciliatory note toward the United Nations. He told reporters during a Saturday evening press conference in Baghdad that Iraq is committed to complying with the array of cease-fire conditions that ended a six-week aerial bombardment of the country launched two years ago today to force Iraq from Kuwait.

That strategy appears designed to drive a wedge between the threesome that has declared the no-fly zone--the United States, France and Britain--and the 30 countries that joined the allied coalition to oust Iraq from Kuwait and have backed the Security Council resolutions that ended the war. While the latter countries recognize the legal force of the Security Council resolutions, diplomats said many have been repelled by the aggressiveness of the three big powers and have grown wary of their efforts to justify their actions by citing U.N. resolutions.

Iraq’s strategy appears designed to appeal to those skeptics for sympathy.

Aziz acknowledged Saturday that Baghdad’s new proposal is a deliberate move by Iraq “to separate this issue from the main issue, which is our rejection of the allied no-fly zone.”

At the same time, Aziz defended Iraq’s earlier offer to permit the U.N. flights without offering security guarantees, particularly in zones where Baghdad has vowed to open fire on allied warplanes.

“The current situation is there is a military aggression taking place against Iraq with American, British and French warplanes,” he said.

Iraqi Defiance

In one of its most strident warnings yet, the official Iraqi news agency Saturday quoted the head of Iraq’s air force as saying Iraq would “not accept that the desecration of its airspace continue.” Iraqi air force commander Lt. Gen. Mozahem Saab Hassan said Iraq “shall strike at any target that enters our airspace. Our aircraft and defense systems are ready to confront enemy planes that fly over our southern or northern territory.”

Aziz also reiterated that Iraq, with the backing of several U.N. member states, insists that there is no legal basis or U.N. resolution authorizing the allied ban on its military flights in the predominantly Shiite Muslim southern zone and the Kurdish northern zone, where the allies contend that Hussein’s predominantly Sunni Muslim regime launched a campaign of terror and oppression after the Iraqi army was forced out of Kuwait.

Aziz appeared to concede that the conflict with the U.N. Special Commission over its flights into Iraq was just the latest in a series of “skirmishes” between Iraq and the international body. But he called it and a series of cross-border missions by unarmed Iraqi civilian workers who retrieved Iraqi property from Kuwaiti border territory “minor questions.” And he took pains to cast Iraq as conciliatory toward the United Nations.

Aziz also spoke in conciliatory tones when discussing the prospect for better relations with the United States after President-elect Bill Clinton takes office Wednesday. “Iraq has never sought conflict with the U.S.,” he said.

When asked by reporters whether even the latest concessions would make life more difficult for the U.N. weapons inspectors, who commute between Baghdad and Bahrain, an island state almost due south of Iraq, Aziz replied: “Why? Why not?

“For the sake of safety, why shouldn’t they take another route? It will just cost them a little more for fuel.”

Later, he added: “If there is good intention, they should take the Iraqi offer with great appreciation. . . . We are making it very easy for them to carry out their job very safely.”

But Trevan said the commission needs “to use the short route between Bahrain and Baghdad and . . . cannot use the longer route” that Iraq dictated. Asked why, Trevan said that the U.N. rejection of the Iraqi proposal was both a matter of principle--that conditions on the inspectors’ travels could not be accepted--and a matter of efficiency. The Special Commission, he said, “cannot effectively operate using the longer route.”

Healy reported from Washington and Fineman from Baghdad.