Chief Arms Inspector Cuts Visit After Talks With Iraq Collapse

Talks between Iraq and the United Nations on dismantling Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction have collapsed, and the chief U.N. inspector was cutting his trip to Baghdad short, the president of the Security Council said Monday.

Richard Butler will be in New York by Wednesday at the latest to brief the council, said Danilo Turk, the Slovenian ambassador to the council and its current president.

Butler was unlikely to get clearance to fly out of Baghdad before dawn today.

“This is a difficult moment,” Turk said. “It is not easy to have the discussions cut short; it is disturbing. We will have to see what Mr. Butler brings.”

Turk said he had consulted with fellow council members and was not clear yet what caused the breakdown in the talks.

Earlier, Butler said Iraq rejected his proposal for a plan of action to end the inspections that began after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

“We did not make the progress I have hoped for,” Butler said. “I do not know whether we are going to meet tomorrow.”

His comments followed harsh criticism by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, who said Butler was serving U.S. interests by trying to prolong sanctions against Iraq.

Aziz said the U.N. Special Commission was “back to its old games, to its old tricks.”

The commission, which Butler heads, is responsible for ensuring that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction, as required by U.N. resolutions that ended the Gulf War.

The Security Council has said that the sanctions--including a ban on air travel and limits on the sale of oil--will not be lifted until the commission ensures the weapons have been destroyed.

Aziz accused Butler’s team of ignoring Iraq’s progress in reaching the goal and instead focusing on “minor issues which make no sense from the angle of disarmament.”

Neither Aziz nor Butler gave specifics on what was discussed Monday, but the “blueprint” Butler presented the Iraqis during his last visit in June calls for further disclosures about the country’s missile program and biological and chemical weaponry.