Iraq Bars U.N. Team From Disputed Site

Iraqi officials blocked U.N. weapons monitors from entering a disputed site in Baghdad on Wednesday, and chief inspector Richard Butler termed the refusal “very serious.”

The confrontation at the headquarters of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s Arab Baath Socialist Party came just one day after surprise inspections began again in Iraq. Baghdad charged that the inspectors appear set on provoking a new crisis.

In Washington, State Department spokesman James Foley said the Clinton administration will await a formal report from Butler, the head of the U.N. Special Commission overseeing the elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, before assessing the incident.

“We will want to hear from Chairman Butler about the results of these activities and his assessment of Iraqi cooperation,” Foley said. “UNSCOM inspectors must be able to do their work unfettered.”

Foley warned, however, that the U.S. would block the comprehensive Security Council sanctions review that Iraq is seeking if Washington determines that Hussein’s government is thwarting the inspectors.

That threat was repeated at the White House.

Asked what would happen if Iraq did not comply with the inspectors, White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said, “We certainly would have no discussions about [lifting] sanctions.”

In Europe, where she is attending North Atlantic Treaty Organization meetings, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright also stressed that the entire record of Iraq’s cooperation would have to be reviewed if Baghdad blocks the inspections.

Baghdad limited cooperation with UNSCOM on Aug. 5 and halted it completely Oct. 31 before reversing itself Nov. 14 as the U.S. and Britain were preparing military strikes.

“Sometimes what happens is that [the Iraqis] refuse the first time and [the inspectors] go back and they get in,” she said. “So I think we have to look at this as a whole, the documents as well as the inspections.”

In recent days, UNSCOM has been pressing Iraq for sensitive documents about its weapons programs.

A key document that the inspectors are seeking is believed to list the amount of ordnance able to be fitted with chemical or biological weapons that Iraq used in its eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s.

U.N. weapons inspectors suspect that Baghdad may have had larger stores of such weapons than it previously reported.

Butler notified U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday that a team was denied access.

Butler “has told us he will not make an assessment of overall compliance on the basis of a single incident,” said Fred Eckhard, spokesman for Annan.

Iraqi Oil Minister Amir Mohammed Rashid charged that the team of U.N. inspectors violated an agreement involving sensitive sites.

“Unless this is resolved, there will be potential for crises, confrontation and problems,” Rashid told a news conference in Baghdad. “The Special Commission wants to create a problem, a crisis, by not working through the agreed modalities.”

The weapons inspectors have insisted that, to complete their work, they must have unfettered access to sites where documents or arms components may be hidden.

Iraq’s refusal comes at a delicate time in the disarmament effort.

Butler is expected to report next week to the Security Council on whether Iraq has shown enough cooperation to warrant a comprehensive review of its record of compliance with U.N resolutions.

Iraq hopes that a positive response by the council could lead to the lifting of sanctions imposed after Baghdad invaded Kuwait in 1990.

U.S. diplomats have taken the position that Baghdad must not only comply with requirements but also completely abandon its weapons development programs and account for prisoners taken in Kuwait and property looted during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

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Times staff writers Norman Kempster and James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this report.