Iraq Bars U.S. Weapons Inspectors

Iraq triggered a new confrontation with the United States on Wednesday when it declared that Americans will no longer be permitted to work there on a U.N. team dismantling Iraq’s biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

The U.N. immediately suspended all field activities of the weapons group, confining it to its office in Baghdad. The U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the Iraqi declaration and warned of “serious consequences” unless it is withdrawn.

Wednesday’s action capped a week of escalating rhetoric between the U.S. and the government of President Saddam Hussein over Iraq’s balky cooperation with the U.N. weapons commission, which was established as a result of an agreement ending the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The commission must certify that all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction have been eliminated before the Security Council can lift an oil sales embargo and other economic sanctions imposed on Iraq.

In a letter to the Security Council, Tarik Aziz, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, accused American members of the weapons team of “multifarious acts of injustice and . . . deliberate abuse” and said the government will no longer deal with them.

The letter gave the 10 American weapons inspectors now in the country one week to leave and demanded the removal of an American U-2 surveillance airplane operating under contract to the commission.

Aziz repeated earlier assertions--rejected by the U.N.--that Iraq has already destroyed all its proscribed weapons and that the U.S. is manipulating the inspections in an effort to topple Hussein’s government.

In presenting the letter to the Security Council on Wednesday, Nizar Hamdoun, the Iraqi ambassador, denied any attempt at provocation.

“Iraq is in no way opting for any confrontation,” he said.

Iraq appeared to be trying to exploit divisions that surfaced within the Security Council last week when Russia, France, China, Egypt and Kenya abstained from a U.S.-sponsored resolution threatening Iraq with additional penalties unless cooperation with weapons inspectors improved.

But this time the Security Council responded with speed and unanimity, issuing its condemnation of Iraq within hours.

The council also said it will continue to closely monitor the issue.

Richard Butler, the Australian diplomat who heads the weapons inspection effort, praised the council resolution and rejected the Iraqi position as “not acceptable.”

“Iraq signed an agreement to accept whatever persons the commission employs on its professional staff,” he said. “That agreement has to be adhered to.”

In addition to what he described as the “temporary” suspension of field inspections in Iraq, Butler canceled a meeting in New York on Friday with high-level Iraqi military officials and postponed a scheduled Nov. 7 session with Aziz in Baghdad. Butler was to be accompanied to Baghdad by Charles Duelfer, an American who is deputy chief of the commission.

Butler added that he is confident of the safety of the 10 Americans in the Iranian capital, whom the U.N. declined to identify.

“As far as I’m concerned, they’re OK, and the signs are that they’ll be OK,” he said. “The moment there’s any apprehension about their safety, we’ll have them out of there.”

In a formal statement in Washington, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin called the Iraqi letter “an attack on the very fundamentals of the U.N. system.”

“We are currently discussing this serious challenge with our allies” and other Security Council members, he added. “As a challenge to the Security Council’s authority, this action has potentially grave consequences.”

There was no immediate effect Wednesday on a separate U.N. program that allows Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil to fund humanitarian programs in the country or on U.S. and British warplanes patrolling a sector of southern Iraq placed off-limits to Iraqi aircraft.

The weapons commission employs 100 people in Baghdad, 60 at U.N. headquarters in New York and another dozen at a supply station in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain.

The inspectors are housed on the outskirts of Baghdad in a former hotel from which they launch surprise inspections on sites where they suspect the Iraqis are concealing evidence relating to long-range missiles, or to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons systems.

Originally envisioned as a short-term operation, the commission’s work has evolved into nearly seven years of hide-and-seek with the Iraqi regime.

U.N. officials have frequently complained that Iraqi military escorts hamper investigations, deliberately mislead inspectors and have even tried to seize the controls of U.N. helicopters in mid-flight.

Butler reported recently that while the commission has made significant progress in eliminating Iraq’s chemical and nuclear threat, Hussein’s government appears to be continuing to hide its germ warfare program.

Turner reported from the U.N. and Daniszewski from Cairo. Times staff writer Tyler Marshall in Washington contributed to this report.