Officials Fear Renewed Iraq Confrontation

A U-2 reconnaissance plane flew into Iraqi airspace and U.N. weapons inspectors in Baghdad made their rounds without incident Monday, but there were fears here that the international community and Iraq are edging toward a new confrontation over expected attempts by the disarmament team to penetrate some of Baghdad’s most sensitive military and intelligence facilities.

The sites, unilaterally placed off limits or otherwise restricted by the Iraqi government, include dozens of President Saddam Hussein’s palaces and their surrounding territory, sometimes amounting to hundreds of acres; facilities assigned to two of Hussein’s intelligence operations, the Special Security Organization and the Iraqi Intelligence Service; and bases of the Special Republican Guard, a military elite that oversees weapons development.

U.N. weapons inspectors have not tried to revisit the sites since they were readmitted to the country Friday but are expected to do so soon because officials suspect that the palaces and other facilities may be hiding places for forbidden weapons research and production and for records documenting Iraq’s biological, chemical and nuclear warfare plans.

Clinton administration officials pressed the case for access to the palaces in appearances on weekend news shows. Bill Richardson, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., cited them again here Monday, saying, “We feel very strongly there should be full access to all sites.”

In Vancouver, Canada, where he is meeting Pacific Rim leaders at an economic summit, Clinton said: “I just want the inspectors to be able to do their job. My suspicions [as to what may be at the sites] are not important. . . . The term ‘palace’ has a different meaning in Iraq than it would to the ordinary American. The ordinary American would hear the word palace and they would think a very fancy residence for the head of state or member of a royal family. [But] many of these are large compounds.”

Nizar Hamdoun, Iraq’s ambassador to the U.N., confirmed Monday that presidential sites remain out of bounds to inspectors as far as the Iraqi government is concerned. He repeated Iraq’s position--that it has destroyed all its illegal weapons and has nothing to hide, and said Iraqi sensitivity to intrusion stems from concerns about security and sovereignty.

“We put these places off limits for the same reason your country has the White House and other buildings in Washington, D.C., off limits to foreigners without an invitation,” he said in an interview. “We are hiding nothing, but if we were we could hide these things anywhere. Iraq is a big country. . . . The only positive approach to the issue is for the [United Nations] to show us their evidence. . . . They only talk about evidence; they don’t provide evidence.”

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But U.N. officials reply that Iraq has thwarted them when they have tried to gather such data. U.N. documents and interviews with officials show that attempts to investigate the facilities have sparked confrontations that at least twice resulted in physical struggles. Many of the most dangerous encounters involve six Chilean Air Force helicopters the U.N. uses for low-level surveillance, aerial photography and transportation on long-range inspection trips.

In June, for example, a copter on an inspection trip to Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on the Tigris River north of Baghdad nearly crashed when the Iraqi military escort on board lunged into the cockpit and grabbed the co-pilot’s control stick. Others aboard wrestled the Iraqi into his seat and the pilot regained control of the craft. But the pilot was so shaken that he immediately returned to his base.

There was at least one other case in which one of the accompanying Iraqis tried to seize control of a copter on an inspection trip. In another instance, an Iraqi tackled an inspector taking photographs from a chopper and tried to throw his camera out the door. Iraqi pilots have maneuvered their copters into the flight path of the U.N. craft and have flown so close that their rotor blade paths have overlapped.

According to a U.N. account, one of the Iraqis who interfered with a helicopter flight told inspectors: “I will do whatever I can to stop you flying. . . . I have my orders and I will do what I have to do.”

Officials here say these incidents illustrate the risks Iraq is prepared to take to prevent scrutiny of the palaces and other sensitive facilities.

The American U-2 plane on loan to the U.N. also has captured on film episodes in which Iraqi officials carted documents out the back door of some buildings while inspectors were blocked from entering the front. Inspectors also have witnessed and videotaped Iraqis burning documents and dumping the ashes into a river while the U.N. team was delayed outside.

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Charles Duelfer, deputy director of the U.N. disarmament commission, noted that inspectors have identified at least 63 sites where Iraq is believed to be concealing records or weapons activity. Inspectors have been delayed or blocked 83% of the time they tried to visit those sites, he said.

It is not even clear how many presidential residences there are in Iraq. Sometimes, the U.N. is not informed of a site’s status until inspectors turn up at the door. In other cases, inspectors have been blocked from targets because reaching them required driving through or flying over a presidential compound, officials say.

While Iraq considers presidential property outside the weapons inspectors jurisdiction, Hamdoun said he hopes that military and intelligence facilities can be opened under a protocol worked out last year between the Iraqi government and the U.N. commission. Under the agreement, inspectors were to be restricted in number, accompanied by Iraqi escorts and required to give notice before arrival.

But U.N. officials said Iraq reneged on this deal. Richard Butler, chairman of the disarmament commission, had been trying to discuss the issue with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz when Iraq ignited the latest crisis by banning U.S. participation in the inspections. Iraq relented, but Butler has not yet rescheduled the meeting.

* Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren in Vancouver, Canada, contributed to this report.