Arms Inspector Lays Out His Strategy on Baghdad

The men who represent the two sides of the U.N. sanctions policy for Iraq--the incoming weapons inspector, whose investigations will shape the sanctions, and the outgoing humanitarian chief, who tried to ease them--said Wednesday that they are both searching for a better way.

Hans Blix, the new top arms inspector for Iraq, said he will strive for a middle ground between alienating and appeasing Baghdad. “I am determined that we shall exercise the right to unrestricted access, but I am also determined that our role is not to humiliate the Iraqis,” he said on his first day on the job.

Blix, 71, is in charge of ensuring that Iraq dismantle its weapons of mass destruction--a difficult post that demands hard-nosed persistence and subtle persuasion to gain access to suspected weapons sites. His predecessors, Rolf Ekeus and Richard Butler, were occasionally blocked and duped by the government, they have said, and were accused of harboring spies.

Blix’s first task is to draw up a new organization plan and staff list for the inspection agency, the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. He said he will keep some members of the agency’s earlier incarnation, the U.N. Special Commission, who are valued for their experience and institutional memory, even though they may be disliked by Iraq.

If Blix’s inspection team certifies that Iraq is disarming, the U.N. will consider suspending the sweeping economic sanctions that have been in place since Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Although Iraq has refused to accept inspections since a punitive U.S. and British bombing raid in December 1998, the Security Council settled on Blix after months of deliberation as the candidate most likely to work well with President Saddam Hussein’s regime.

He has experience: Under his leadership, the International Atomic Energy Agency conducted nuclear weapons inspections in Iraq, although the inspectors missed a significant arms buildup. But critics worry that Blix will not stand up to the Iraqi government in his search for chemical and biological weapons.

“One must remember that Iraq is not a country under occupation,” Blix said Wednesday. “You cannot go on forever to take the authorities by surprise there. Inspectors are not an army, not a commando troop that can leap in and shoot their way to the target.”

As Blix reported to work, the humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Hans von Sponeck, wound down his 36-year U.N. career by explaining why he couldn’t continue his job in good conscience.

Von Sponeck said he decided last month to resign after concluding that the decade of sanctions had left the Iraqi people in “a lamentable state,” with inadequate resources for food, education or industry.

In Iraq, he oversaw distribution of aid and humanitarian goods paid for by oil sales that had been approved by the U.N. to ease ordinary people’s suffering. But he described the “oil-for-food” program as sorely lacking.

“There’s little chance of sustaining such a program,” he said at an unusual official news conference. “It’s better to have an optimistic coordinator there than to have someone there who doesn’t believe in the program.”