U.N. Leader Seeks Way Out of Iraq Crisis

Secretary-General Kofi Annan is seeking a diplomatic compromise in the confrontation with Baghdad that would include augmenting U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq with a contingent of diplomats or scientific experts during visits to eight contentious Iraqi “presidential sites,” sources at the U.N. said Wednesday.

Annan has moved to the center of the negotiations in the last two days as Russian, French, Turkish and Arab efforts to broker a solution have faltered and as the United States and Britain have gathered wider support for a last-resort military attack intended to pummel Iraqi President Saddam Hussein into cooperating with U.N. weapons inspections.

“Kofi is now the wild card,” said a senior diplomat at the U.N. “He has the idea of a deal, and he’s now looking for a way to make it work.”

“He’s the only one who can do a deal,” echoed a French envoy.

Annan’s efforts came amid reports that U.N. inspectors had uncovered evidence of a 1995 agreement by Russia to sell Iraq equipment that could be used to develop biological weapons.

U.N. inspectors last fall found a confidential document at an Iraqi ministry describing negotiations leading to the deal, which included the sale of a 5,000-liter fermentation vessel, sources told the Washington Post. The vessel ostensibly would be used to make protein for animal feed but could be employed to develop biological weapons.

Moscow has not replied to a U.N. request made six weeks ago for information about the deal, the Post reported. As a result, the inspectors are uncertain if Iraq received the equipment.

The U.N. discovery provoked concern among U.S. officials and some foreign diplomats that Russia’s recent diplomatic drive to help Iraq constrain future U.N. inspections may be motivated by a desire to conceal such a deal.

At the United Nations, meanwhile, officials said that Annan has the outline of a resolution to the confrontation with Iraq in his sights, but that it remains elusive because of wide disagreement on the details.

“We’re walking a tightrope,” said one U.N. official. “It’s very narrow, but there is a little room for maneuver, for compromise.”

A European diplomat added: “Last week, everyone had his own ideas. There were discussions with the Iraqis and among ourselves. Now those ideas are narrowing.”

Annan met behind closed doors Wednesday with representatives of the five permanent members of the Security Council--the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia--to try to find agreement on a plan to preserve the integrity of the U.N. effort to weed out Iraq’s illegal weapons programs but give Hussein a face-saving way to back down. The council is key because it created the inspection program as part of the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

U.N. insiders said if Annan can find ground for a compromise, he is prepared to fly to Baghdad and present it to Hussein in an attempt to head off a U.S.-led airstrike. Wednesday’s session, however, produced only an agreement to resume meeting later in the week.

The plan under discussion entails adding diplomats or scientific experts to the team of arms inspectors working for the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq. But efforts to craft this compromise have been stymied by Iraq’s insistence on limiting inspections and making the weapons investigators subservient to the diplomats who would accompany them on investigations of Iraqi “presidential” compounds.

The Iraqis also want to dilute the power of Richard Butler, the plain-spoken Australian disarmament expert who heads the U.N. weapons inspection program.

Those conditions are unacceptable to the U.S., Britain and France and are contrary to Security Council resolutions that require Iraq to provide unconditional access to any place the inspectors say they need to go to complete their work.

The United States and other council members cannot agree fully on how the new plan would work. U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson said the American goal is to ensure that inspectors have the access they need and to preserve “the integrity and professionalism” of the work. The U.S., Britain and France are prepared to add the scientific experts or diplomats to the inspection teams as long as they do not impede the search for illegal arms.

“If the Iraqis want to let in a half-dozen diplomats to sit around and watch, that’s OK,” said a European representative here.

A British envoy observed: “That means Butler leading with as many of his own staff as it takes to do an inspection and with the requisite equipment, plus some hangers-on from elsewhere. The bottom line is that there is no way Iraq will be able to impede regular” inspections.

But just who the added personnel might be is a central issue. U.S. and British envoys are insisting that they come from the five permanent Security Council members. There also are concerns that diplomats might politicize the inspection program. The “fear is that these new diplomats or scientific personnel will first be representatives of their countries and their countries’ agendas rather than professionals working on disarmament,” the French envoy said.

Officials in the present program suggest that diplomatic escorts friendly to Iraq might even tip off the Iraqis to what are supposed to be surprise inspections.

The current dispute focuses on eight compounds, some of which contain hundreds of buildings, that Iraq has declared off limits to inspectors. Iraqi officials say they have disposed of prohibited weapons and that inspections of the sites is an affront to their sovereignty.

Iraq’s offer Wednesday, outlined by Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz in an interview with Cable News Network, was instantly rejected by the U.S. The proposal called for a new team of inspectors appointed by Annan to search the eight disputed presidential sites for a 60-day period.

“It’s not up to Iraq to set the conditions for those inspections. It’s up to the United Nations to do the work as the United Nations sees fit,” White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said.

At a treaty signing ceremony Wednesday, President Clinton said Hussein “must let the weapons inspectors back with full and free access to all suspect sites. If he will not act, we must be prepared to do so.”

Diplomats here are beginning to divide into two camps: Those who believe that Iraq, in tiny steps, is backing away from its hard line in the face of the growing military threat in the Gulf, and others who believe that Hussein is ready to absorb an attack because it will turn him from villain to martyr in the eyes of the Arab world.

“When it’s all over, he’s going to come out of his hole, thumb his nose at the U.S. and go back to making his chemical weapons,” said one official espousing the latter view.

In other developments Wednesday:

* An emergency meeting in Kuwait of foreign ministers from six Persian Gulf states issued a statement saying “the only solution to spare the people of Iraq” was for Iraq to fully implement U.N. resolutions. The ministers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates also said the present crisis “is the direct result of Baghdad’s reluctance to cooperate” with the United Nations. And in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak said he had warned the Iraqi foreign minister that Baghdad must back down in the dispute or the Iraqi people would be hurt.

* House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Congress still has many questions about the administration’s plans on Iraq. “What are the plans, what are the goals? Is the president prepared to pay for this with an additional supplemental over and above the defense budget?” he asked at a news conference. “There’s a very strong feeling that members have not been briefed enough, do not know enough about what the president plans and have not been informed about what the president is prepared to do to maintain our defense forces.”

Turner reported from the United Nations and Wright from Washington. Times staff writers John Daniszewski in Kuwait City and Janet Hook in Washington also contributed to this report.

* PENTAGON PREPARES: Officials say U.S. has the political support and most materiel it needs to confront Iraq. A10