U.N. Weapons Inspectors in Iraq Back to Square One

Iraq’s refusal to cooperate with U.N. arms inspectors has crippled the international investigation of Baghdad’s nuclear weapons program and increased the chance that Iraq could resume atomic bomb development without detection, officials reported Tuesday.

The disclosure was included in a letter to the president of the Security Council from Mohammed Baradei, director of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. affiliate that is in charge of nuclear inspections in Iraq.

The finding undermines the agency’s previous assurances that it could find no evidence that Iraq had resumed nuclear weapons research that had been disrupted and destroyed during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Now, the letter said, the agency has “a significantly reduced level of assurance” in that conclusion because it does not have the access it needs to conduct inspections.

Baradei’s declaration also is likely to increase diplomatic pressure on Iraq to roll back an edict, announced by President Saddam Hussein last week, ending Baghdad’s cooperation with arms inspectors.

The letter was delivered as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan dispatched a special envoy, Indian diplomat Prakash Shah, to Baghdad with what was described as a “firm message” to the Iraqi government to resume cooperation with inspections.

Annan said last week that the Iraqi decision breached the agreement he reached in February with Hussein that called for unfettered access by arms investigators to any site they needed to inspect.

Under terms of the cease-fire that ended the Gulf War, U.N. inspectors must certify that Iraq has dismantled its ability to wage nuclear, chemical and biological war and its long-range missiles before the Security Council can lift economic sanctions imposed in 1990. The Iraqi government maintains that it has eliminated all those weapons.