U.S. Demands Access to Search Hussein’s Palaces

The United States demanded Sunday that U.N. monitors responsible for ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction be given unimpeded access to suspect sites, including President Saddam Hussein’s many palaces.

Arguing for keeping all U.N. sanctions in place in the meantime, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen accused Iraq of blocking access to 63 sites, including the palaces, to conceal possible caches of outlawed biological and chemical weapons.

President Clinton, in Vancouver, Canada, where he is attending the 18-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, said the inspectors face a “massive amount of work” before he will consider the latest U.N. standoff with Iraq over.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf rejected Cohen’s call for unrestricted access to presidential property and other sensitive sites. The inspectors “should avoid coming near sites which are part of Iraq’s sovereignty and national security,” he told a news conference in Baghdad.

Cohen said Hussein had ruled 63 sites off-limits to UNSCOM, the U.N. commission responsible for destroying any biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. “Those cannot be off-limits,” he said on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”

Nizar Hamdoun, Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations, argued on CNN that Baghdad should be allowed to restrict access to sites “directly related to the president.”

Hussein reportedly possesses as many as 47 palaces. Iraqi officials have said Rolf Ekeus, the previous chief of the disarmament commission, had agreed to special treatment for the presidential compounds.