Albright Wins Qualified French Support on Iraq

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright won qualified French endorsement Thursday for use of military force against Iraq if necessary to get Baghdad to comply with the United Nations weapons inspections program.

After talks here with French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, Albright said Washington and Paris agreed that they no longer will tolerate a “very grave” crisis for which Iraq is “fully responsible.”

Albright also warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that the world is “standing together” and that he could no longer “thwart” the international community’s demand that Baghdad allow unfettered inspections aimed at eliminating the regime’s weapons of mass destruction.

After months of trying to get Baghdad to give U.N. inspectors access to disputed “presidential palaces” in Iraq, the diplomatic options are now “all but exhausted,” she told a news conference here. The time is “fast approaching,” she said, “for fundamental decisions. . . . The patience of the international community is running out.”

She also expressed deep concern about what may be happening inside Iraq now that inspectors cannot freely investigate whether Baghdad is creating or stockpiling chemical and biological weapons.

France, which has significant business interests in Iraq, still hopes diplomacy will lead to an eleventh-hour solution that will avert the need for military action, Vedrine said. But, he pointedly added, “All options are open.”

“When the French foreign minister says ‘All options are open,’ we welcome that kind of support,” Albright said later on ABC-TV’s “Nightline.” In an attempt to accommodate French concerns, the diplomatic compromise on what course of action is or is not acceptable has been couched in language that is sometimes obscure to the outside world--but clear to key players.

Nonetheless, a day earlier, Albright had made clear U.S. resolve about using military force. “While we prefer always to go multilaterally,” she said in Washington before leaving for Europe, “. . . we are prepared to go unilaterally.”

While Russian officials in Moscow complained about remarks by Richard Butler, the Australian who heads the U.N. inspections program and who asserted that Iraq has the capability to “blow away Tel Aviv,” France’s top diplomat paid tribute to the work of the inspectors.

Vedrine said he hoped Hussein understood that he could not impose any conditions on their work or access to Baghdad’s weapons of mass destruction. “This is absolutely basic,” he said.

The primary French concern is that airstrikes will not solve the problem of how and when to end the U.N. sanctions against Iraq, the toughest such measures imposed on any nation. Paris and Washington remain deeply divided over what circumstances warrant easing the embargo. Albright last year said the United States would oppose lifting sanctions as long as Hussein is in power. France also fears a military action might inadvertently strengthen Hussein, one of the Mideast’s wiliest leaders, rather than weaken him and force him to comply.

Vedrine pressed the United States to accept a major increase in the oil-for-food program that lets Iraq sell $2 billion of oil every six months to pay for humanitarian goods. Paris favors at least doubling the amount of oil Baghdad is allowed to sell, Vedrine said at the news conference. France also would favor allowing Iraq to sell $4 billion of oil every three months, instead of every six, other French officials say. Washington has recently called for more modest increases.

As Albright launched a week of crisis diplomacy that will take her to Europe and the Persian Gulf, the war drums began to beat louder. Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov said Thursday in Madrid that he was “not sure” even a diplomatic breakthrough would avert a U.S. military strike. “I am not sure that we will be able to do something to prevent it.”

Albright is to fly to Madrid today to meet Primakov, who has been the leading advocate and activist searching for a diplomatic alternative. They will be joined in Spain by Viktor Posuvalyuk, a Russian Foreign Ministry official who just concluded talks in Baghdad.

Russia, which along with France has long ties to and big economic interests in the region, has been searching with the French for face-saving compromises that would persuade Baghdad to comply with the U.N. disarmament mission. After Iraq offered to allow diplomats rather than weapons inspectors into the disputed presidential palaces, France suggested that both diplomats and inspectors be given access to the facilities.

But in the U.S., domestic pressure is building on the Clinton administration to do more than express displeasure with Iraq’s maneuvers on the weapons program. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers considered a resolution Thursday requiring Clinton to “take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction.”

Congress is also considering urging U.S. measures that go further than anything required under U.N. resolutions. “A number of senior former national security officials have called publicly for a policy aimed at removing Saddam Hussein from power,” said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). “I think it is time for the administration, working with Congress and with these distinguished experts, to develop a long-term strategy to end the threat from Iraq.”

At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday, senior U.S. intelligence officials predicted that Hussein will remain a threat even after the current confrontation is resolved, as he continues attempts to divide the allies and end both weapons inspections and economic sanctions.

“Saddam Hussein has the capability to generate a crisis, and there’s not much we can do about that now except to respond to the crisis,” said Army Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Baghdad remained defiant Thursday. In comments to mark the start of the feast that ends the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Hussein said the “faithful will be victorious.”

Several diplomats also were reportedly invited to one of the eight disputed presidential palaces for the Ramadan-linked celebratory meal, a none-too-subtle attempt to disprove U.N. suspicions that the site shelters documents, parts or stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.

Tarik Aziz, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, also portrayed a military strike as imminent, telling the BBC in an interview that such an assault was part of the broader U.S. goal of eliminating Hussein. “Compliance or noncompliance [with the U.N. inspections program] is not the issue for the Americans,” Aziz asserted. “The issue for the Americans is changing this government.”

Times staff writers John-Thor Dahlburg in Paris and Carol J. Williams in Moscow contributed to this report.