Iraq Rejects U.N. Arms Inspection Plan

Iraq on Saturday rejected a new U.N. plan to restart weapons inspections, saying it was a no-go until the Security Council lifts the trade sanctions imposed nearly 10 years ago.

Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz said the government was not impressed by the U.N. Security Council’s approval Thursday of the plan drawn up by chief weapons inspector Hans Blix.

“Any resolution which does not meet Iraq’s legitimate rights in removing the embargo and denouncing aggression [against Baghdad] is not acceptable,” he said, referring to the U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and subsequent U.S. and British airstrikes.

While some Iraqi officials have left open the possibility of compromise over the bid to restore weapons inspections, Aziz said he did not know of any member of the regime who would permit them.

The council’s approval of Blix’s plan for a new panel, called the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, showed that world powers remain determined to restart inspections.

U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 ahead of the airstrikes, launched to punish Iraq for allegedly failing to cooperate with the inspection panel.

The sanctions can be lifted only when the inspectors inform the Security Council that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them. Baghdad says it has already done so.

“I would like to reconfirm what we have said before--that U.S. and British efforts to impose a new unfair resolution will never succeed,” Aziz said.

He dismissed as “trickery” the December resolution that established the new inspection commission and that offered the possibility of a suspension of sanctions in return for Iraq’s cooperation.

Blix’s plan addresses some of Iraq’s grievances about the former inspection panel, the U.N. Special Commission, or UNSCOM. The plan stresses that inspectors will work for the U.N. rather than any government.

The chief inspector clearly does not want his team to be tainted by the allegations that stung UNSCOM: that inspectors spied on Iraq on behalf of the United States.