Iraq Says Arms Inspectors Can’t Return
Iraq said Thursday that it will not allow U.N. arms inspectors back into the country to reinstate a disarmament program halted on the eve of U.S. and British airstrikes in December 1998.
Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan gave the clearest rebuff to date of renewed inspection attempts stipulated in a Dec. 17 U.N. Security Council resolution.
“There shall be no return of the so-called inspection teams. We reject the infiltration by spies using such cover,” the official Iraqi News Agency quoted Ramadan as telling a visiting Russian envoy.
The remarks come as the newly appointed chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix of Sweden, tries to set up a new disarmament commission.
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