Iraqi Resistance to Arms Inspections Reunifies Coalition

After months of divisive squabbling over how to deal with Iraq’s obstruction of United Nations weapons inspectors, the U.S.-led coalition is now reunited in its frustration and moving toward more decisive action, American and European officials say.

With Iraq this week rebuffing the latest U.N. efforts to resolve the dispute, the allied coalition appears poised for steps that eventually could lead to the most serious military action in years, despite continuing reservations among some key allies, the officials said.

Chief U.N. inspector Richard Butler said Wednesday that three days of talks this week aimed at resolving the standoff ended with Iraq not only balking at allowing U.N. weapons inspectors full access to Iraqi sites but also with Baghdad demanding a freeze for as many as three months on U.N. efforts to visit several compounds Iraq has declared off limits.

The condition was immediately rejected by U.S. and British officials.

“Iraq has ignored the message of the Security Council and instead tried to impose new and unacceptable conditions on U.N. operations there, including some kind of moratorium on U.N. inspections of certain sites,” State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said.

In an interview on “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,” President Clinton said the latest setback was “very serious” and predicted that “sooner or later something is going to give.”

As Butler said this week: “I don’t think this play has got many acts left.”

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said Iraq’s action “strains credulity.” Allowing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to determine which sites are inspected means that the world will never be able to stop him from developing chemical and biological weapons, he said.

“With every passing day, Saddam Hussein continues to expand his arsenal of biological and chemical weapons,” Cook said. “Every week, Saddam is creating enough anthrax to fill two missile warheads.”

Failure of Butler’s three-day mission to Baghdad also is focusing more attention on strong measures that might force Hussein to comply with the U.N. demands. The U.N. disarmament mission has been in its final and most difficult phase--getting Hussein and his regime to surrender the deadliest arms that give his government a military edge in the world’s most volatile region.

The showdown is likely to reach a decisive juncture Friday, when Butler reports to the U.N. Security Council about his talks in Baghdad.

At that point, the coalition will be considering three categories of options:

* Economic sanctions: Consensus is growing on the Security Council to suspend its regular reviews of the sanctions against Iraq, European envoys say. That, in turn, would indefinitely delay any prospect of lifting punitive measures that have cost Iraq about $100 billion in lost oil revenues since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and have created serious hardships for the Iraqi people, including massive shortages of medicine and foodstuffs. This option addresses what Iraq cares about most. Indeed, the main goal of Baghdad’s brinkmanship appears to be to force the U.N. and the United States to discuss the circumstances under which sanctions would end. The Clinton administration declared last year that it foresaw no circumstances under which sanctions would be lifted as long as Hussein remains in power.

* Diplomacy: France and Russia are advising Iraq behind the scenes and offering possible compromises, European envoys said. France persuaded Iraq this week to reduce the number of “palace” sites from dozens to eight or so and not to declare large areas around each also to be off limits, the envoys said. The French also suggested a compromise over Iraq’s proposal to admit diplomats rather than weapons inspectors to the sites. They suggested allowing entry to both. The U.N. could also pass strongly worded resolutions critical of Iraq’s behavior and calling for further punitive measures, including reviving proposed travel limits on high-level officials that were threatened but never imposed last fall. But as the allies this month mark the seventh anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, they increasingly agree that these interventions have limits. “Frustration is building, and diplomacy’s time to prove itself is narrowing,” a senior administration official said Wednesday.

* Military: If Hussein fails to back down at the eleventh hour, Iraq is more likely to face a military response now than was the case last fall, when major European, Arab and Asian allies openly warned against using force. A French envoy said Wednesday that Paris had “never rejected” the use of force. “Before, we’ve said it was not the appropriate time because we thought there were other steps that might work. But we’ve never said it was out of the question,” he said. And on the issue of allowing inspectors full access, he said there is full agreement. “Iraq has to comply or face the consequences,” he said.

At the U.N., Butler’s assessment left a mood of frustration and pessimism. “I have the feeling we are approaching a crunch,” one Western diplomat said. Like others at the U.N., the diplomat expressed concern that Iraq’s obstructionism increased the likelihood of a U.S.-British airstrike--with or without Security Council backing.

But key allies still have doubts. “Unless you are ready to go to all-out war, with all its consequences, and search for each and every possible site of prohibited weapons, what can you do?” argued Sergei V. Lavrov, Russia’s U.N. ambassador.

Chinese officials at the U.N. on Wednesday also repeated their opposition to the use of force.

U.S. officials concede that the military option has limits, in part because “pinprick” strikes by aircraft and missiles have little effect, while larger actions increase the risks to both allied military personnel and Iraqi civilians.

Clinton said in the PBS interview Wednesday that he has been “far from trigger-happy” in defining U.S. strategy. “But if they really believe there are no circumstances in which we would act alone, they are sadly mistaken,” he said.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz said Wednesday that Baghdad had mobilized 1 million volunteers. “We might be attacked,” he said. “We have to take precautions . . . to prepare to fight.”

Wright reported from Washington and Turner from the United Nations in New York.