Weapons’ Fate May Give Hint of Iraq’s Plans

Three wooden crates sit in a parking lot outside a hotel here that serves as the headquarters for the United Nations. They are ready for shipping, but no one has come to take them away.

The crates, containing the remains of missile engines that U.N. weapons inspectors wish to analyze abroad, have not been shipped out of the country because of last-minute resistance from the government of President Saddam Hussein that has startled the inspectors and renewed suspicions that the Iraqi leader has something to hide.

With Iraq pumping oil for the first time since the 1991 Persian Gulf War and an assassination attempt against Hussein’s eldest son, Uday, raising fresh questions about the Iraqi regime’s stability, what happens in the standoff over the little-noticed crates may be a clue to the regime’s long-term strategy.

Is Iraq continuing to delay compliance with U.N. resolutions, a policy that has kept the country isolated and its economy impoverished for six years? Or is Hussein considering turning over a new leaf, using the U.N.-approved partial reopening of his oil pipelines Dec. 10 as the occasion to soften his defiance and cooperate with the international community?

“The opportunity now presents itself for Baghdad to chart a new course toward dialogue, normalization and rehabilitation,” wrote Ragheda Dergham in the London-based, Saudi-owned Arab newspaper Al Hayat last week.

A new course would involve revealing unaccounted-for elements of the country’s missile, chemical and biological weapons programs. It would also mean explaining the fate of 126 missing Kuwaitis taken prisoner during the Gulf War, and paying additional reparations to those injured in Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Speculation that Hussein is pondering an about-face is based on a spate of recent conciliatory statements and contacts between the Iraqi regime and Jordan’s King Hussein.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf and Vice President Taha Muhyi Maruf visited Amman in recent weeks. According to news reports, the envoys sounded out the monarch about whether he would champion an international campaign to rehabilitate Iraq.

Under this scenario, Saddam Hussein would shake up his government, replacing military figures with civilians, and would move to settle differences with Iraq’s ethnic Kurds, Kuwait and the U.N. to create favorable conditions for full removal of remaining U.N. sanctions. The London-based newspaper Al Quds al Arabi reported that Hussein might even leave office as president if he received certain unspecified guarantees.

This seems farfetched. Any genuine loosening by Hussein would be an invitation to his opponents to remove him, a diplomat in the Iraqi capital said last month. The wealth of suspects in the attempt on Uday Hussein’s life hints at what dangers might lie in store for Saddam Hussein.

It is also doubtful that the United States, after keeping the Iraqi president boxed in this long, would be impressed enough by cosmetic changes to approve the removal of remaining sanctions by the U.N. Security Council.

Nevertheless, in a recent interview, Iraqi Information Minister Hamid Youssef Hammadi argued strenuously that the sanctions are a failed policy and invited the United States to open direct dialogue with Iraq.

Some Middle East analysts believe the relaxation of sanctions may boost resistance to the regime inside Iraq as people’s energies are no longer consumed with simply trying to live. That would seem to make it crucial for Saddam Hussein to decide the direction in which he wants to go.

But when Rolf Ekeus, the chief U.N. arms inspector, met with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz for 15 hours last week, he failed to win agreement to remove the crated missile parts for closer inspection. A decision was postponed until February.

The failed talks did nothing to reduce Ekeus’ suspicions. He told the Security Council on Wednesday that he believes Iraq is still hiding significant numbers of operational missiles, possibly enough for “a complete missile force.”