U.S. Officials Press Iraq on Arms Teams’ Entry to Sites

Top Pentagon and foreign policy officials began turning up the pressure on Saddam Hussein again Sunday, as well as on U.S. allies reluctant to force the Iraqi president to grant U.N. weapons inspectors access to about 80 presidential “palaces.”

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson and National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger said in separate television appearances that they hope to resolve the latest standoff through a show of allied unity and resolve.

But if diplomatic efforts fail, they noted, President Clinton remains prepared to take whatever steps are necessary, including the use of military force, to gain access for inspectors.

Hussein is barring U.N. inspection teams from the “palaces,” which U.N. officials say include dozens of compounds and facilities that may house weapons of mass destruction, the materials to build them or research documents on the production of biological weapons.

“We first have to work with the international community, our allies, those that have influence with him . . . to have full access to these weapons,” Richardson said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “But patience eventually is going to run out.”

Cohen, in an appearance on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation,” reiterated Clinton’s willingness to consider military action if Hussein fails to comply.

“President Clinton has indicated he’s prepared to exhaust every reasonable diplomatic opportunity that we can, and he’s doing that,” Cohen said. As for options if those efforts fail, he said: “The president has said he’s ruled nothing in and nothing out.”

The rising tensions come a month after the resolution of an earlier dispute with Hussein, in which the Iraqi president barred U.S. members of the weapons inspection teams from entering any Iraqi sites. In a Russian-brokered solution, Hussein relented and allowed access by the Americans.

Since then, however, allied diplomats have been struggling with another of Hussein’s maneuvers: his refusal to allow U.N. inspection teams into the so-called presidential palaces.

American efforts this week will focus on persuading the U.N. Security Council to issue another warning to Baghdad to provide unfettered access to inspectors.

Speaking on the ABC-TV program “This Week,” Berger said the United States wants Security Council members to endorse “a very firm, clear statement that access means access. We hope, as in the last case, that Saddam listens to that and backs away from this.”

The Americans, however, face open skepticism from the Russian and French delegates to the Security Council, who favor further negotiations with Baghdad and say they see little evidence that the U.S. hard line is having much effect on the Hussein regime.

In Baghdad on Sunday, Trade Minister Mohammed Saleh told a news conference that Iraq plans to submit a new food distribution plan to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a “few days” and that he expects the nation to begin exporting oil again after Annan acts on the plan.

Under what is known as the oil-for-food program, approved by the U.N., Iraq can sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months to buy food and medicine for its people. But earlier this month, the government had announced that it would not participate in the third phase of the program until the world body agreed to a new proposal for how it will distribute food, medicine and other necessities.

The U.N. aid coordinator in Iraq, Denis Halliday, told Associated Press that U.N. workers earlier had completed a plan of their own, also to be submitted to Annan, for supplying humanitarian aid to three Kurdish provinces in northern Iraq. Neither he nor Saleh gave further details of the proposals.

Also Sunday, Clinton led a large delegation from Washington on a short trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The president is to meet privately today in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, with the three-person presidency established under the 1995 Dayton peace accords: Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim;, Kresimir Zubak, a Croat; and Momcilo Krajisnik, a Serb.

Clinton is then scheduled to give an address at Sarajevo’s National Theater before flying to Tuzla to pay a holiday season visit to some of the 8,500 U.S. troops in Bosnia.

The president announced last week that he wants to extend the U.S. military mission in Bosnia indefinitely because if the troops were pulled out in June 1998--as he had pledged--North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies would remove their troops and ethnic warfare almost certainly would resume.

Times staff writer Craig Turner in New York contributed to this report.