Clinton Takes Wait-and-See Stance on Inspections in Iraq

After teetering on the brink of military action against Iraq a week ago, President Clinton on Saturday articulated a wait-and-see approach in response to the first indication that Baghdad is not fully complying with the wishes of U.N. weapons inspectors.

“I think it’s important that we not overreact here on the first day,” Clinton said. “I want to make sure that I know exactly what the facts are.”

Last weekend--with a massive U.S. missile attack already ordered by Clinton--Iraq relented and unambiguously pledged to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to do their jobs of ensuring that Iraq develops no weapons of mass destruction.

After calling off the attack, the White House made it clear that it remained poised to use force if Iraq again thwarted the inspectors.

Last week, Richard Butler, the chief inspector for the United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM, sent three letters to Baghdad requesting documents to help inspectors do their work. The Iraqi response was inadequate, UNSCOM said.

While not responding with aggressive rhetoric, the White House did stress that Iraq must satisfy the inspectors’ requests.

“We’ve said all along that the issue here is whether Iraq will meet its obligations under the Security Council resolutions and whether UNSCOM is able to do its work,” Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, White House national security advisor, told reporters Saturday. “If we reach the conclusion that the answer to those questions is negative, we obviously are prepared to act.”

Clinton stressed to Iraq that it has an obligation to take “affirmative” steps to reveal any information about programs to develop weapons of mass destruction to help the U.N. inspectors do their work.

This requirement was made by the United Nations as a condition to stopping the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

“For most of the last several years . . . when most people would say that Iraq was cooperating with UNSCOM, their idea of cooperation was not to do anything . . . to prevent UNSCOM from moving around a country that is a very large country,” Clinton said at a news conference in Seoul. “But, for most of the time, they took no affirmative steps, as was their duty under the United Nations resolutions.”

The Clinton administration is now consulting with U.N. Security Council officials to determine what steps to take next.

UNSCOM has outlined the inadequacies it sees in the Iraqi responses to the Security Council, and the commission intends to seek further clarification from the Iraqis.

Clinton held a carrot out to Iraq, saying if Baghdad really wants an end to the economic sanctions imposed since the Gulf War, the regime has to comply with the inspectors’ wishes.

“If they want the sanctions lifted because they have complied with all the U.N. resolutions on weapons, they have to give the information on the documents,” Clinton said. “And the longer they take to come up with the information on the documents and get to the bottom of this, the harder it’s going to be to convince everyone else that they should get what they want.”