Iraq Reiterates Its Ban on U.S. Arms Inspectors

Americans will not be permitted to resume work Monday on U.N. weapons inspection teams in Iraq, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday.

The declaration is a direct challenge to the U.N. special commission overseeing the inspections, which has ordered the Americans to continue their work in defiance of Iraq’s order to leave the country.

“There is no retreat from our decision until things are put in order,” Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told reporters after opening ceremonies at an international fair in Baghdad.

Ramadan’s remarks fanned a growing diplomatic crisis that began Wednesday when Iraq gave the Americans on the multinational teams seven days to leave the country. Baghdad has accused the Americans of conspiring to prolong trade sanctions imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Between 10 and 12 Americans serve on the 100-member inspection teams. The U.N. commission has repeatedly accused Iraq of hindering efforts to reveal the country’s programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles.

Also Saturday, several thousand Iraqis demonstrated at the headquarters of the U.N. Development Program in Baghdad, raising banners and portraits of President Saddam Hussein and shouting anti-American slogans.

And in Britain, the Observer newspaper quoted the chief U.N. inspector in Iraq as saying he believes inspectors were on the verge of finding Baghdad’s stockpile of the lethal liquid nerve agent VX last week.

A few ounces of VX could kill millions of people, the Observer said.