Iraq Falling Short, Bush Says

President Bush disparaged Iraq’s efforts to comply with new U.N. disarmament demands as “not encouraging,” suggesting Monday that Saddam Hussein will fail to meet terms for a key report due this weekend -- which would move the United States closer to war.

Early today, U.N. weapons investigators made unannounced inspections of two of Hussein’s presidential palace sites for the first time. During the last six days, the Iraqi leader has allowed the inspectors access to suspicious facilities.

But Bush sought to draw attention away from the inspections, saying that disarmament rather than the inspections is the goal of the U.N. resolution passed last month.

“The inspectors are not in Iraq to play hide and seek with Mr. Saddam Hussein,” Bush said in remarks at the Pentagon. “Inspectors do not have the duty or the ability to uncover terrible weapons hidden in a vast country. The responsibility of inspectors is simply to confirm the evidence of voluntary and total disarmament.”

Under the U.N. resolution, Iraq has until Sunday to provide a full account of any programs to manufacture nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Bush’s remarks appeared intended to intensify pressure on the Iraqis to comply with the resolution by the deadline. The president also laid out strict parameters for compliance.

“In the inspections process, the United States will be making one judgment: Has Saddam Hussein changed his behavior of the last 11 years? Has he decided to cooperate willingly and comply completely, or has he not?” Bush said. “So far, the signs are not encouraging.”

To press his point, Bush spoke for the first time of recent Iraqi actions he considered provocative: continued firing at U.S. and British planes in Iraq’s “no-fly” zones and a bombastic, anti-American letter Iraq sent to the United Nations in which it accepted the terms of the world body’s resolution.

“A regime that fires upon American and British pilots is not taking the path of compliance. A regime that sends letters filled with protests and falsehoods is not taking the path of compliance,” the president said.

Bush added: “Any act of delay, deception or defiance will prove that Saddam Hussein has not adopted the path of compliance and has rejected the path of peace.”

The president did not spell out what actions he intends to take if Iraq fails to meet terms of the declaration due Sunday. But he reiterated in strong language that at some point, the United States is prepared to respond with force.

“The U.N. Security Council, the NATO alliance and the United States are united: Saddam Hussein will fully disarm himself of weapons of mass destruction,” Bush said. “And if he does not, the United States will lead a coalition to disarm him.”

Bush made his comments before he signed a law authorizing a $393-billion defense budget in the biggest increase in military spending since the 1980s.

In the Baghdad area today, several U.N. vehicles entered Al Sojoud palace, one of many large presidential complexes that include residential, office and warehouse buildings. A second group went to the main palace, Karadah, in central Baghdad.

The presidential sites were among those to which Iraq had restricted access during the previous round of inspections, after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The weapons inspectors spent six hours Monday at the Karama ballistics design plant in Baghdad, a rocket factory previously bombed by the United States. A U.N. report issued later Monday said some equipment appeared to have been moved out of the compound.

The plant director, Brig. Mohammed Saleh Mohammed, told reporters in Baghdad that the missing equipment had been either destroyed in the bombing or transferred to another site, whose location has been provided to the inspectors. He said the factory is involved only in the manufacture of missiles with a range of 90 miles or less, permitted under U.N. resolutions.

The inspectors “saw almost all documents, inspected all buildings on the site and interviewed some of the employees. There was no problem, and the whole inspection process went on smoothly,” the Reuters news agency quoted the plant director as saying.

A phalanx of top Bush administration officials also was working to intensify pressure on Iraq.

In New York, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice met with chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix to discuss how to assess and respond to the Iraqi weapons declaration expected Sunday. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz was in London, beginning a trip to encourage allies to supply bases and other support to possible military action against Iraq. U.S. officials said Wolfowitz would outline a program of diplomatic, economic and military aid to Turkey to gain its support.

And in Denver, Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a speech emphasizing in stronger words than the president’s that the United States is prepared to respond militarily to Iraqi non-compliance.

“The president knows that wars are never won on the defensive. In the fight against global terror, we must take the battle to the enemy and, where necessary, preempt serious threats before they materialize against our country,” Cheney told leaders of the Air National Guard.

“The only path to safety is the path of action. And the United States of America will act. We will confront every threat from every source that could possibly bring harm to our country.”

Both Bush and Cheney asserted that Iraq is a legitimate target of the administration’s declared war on terrorism.

“Saddam Hussein’s regime has a long history of aggression against his neighbors and hostility toward America. It has a long history of ties to terrorists,” Bush said. “Now the world has told him the game is over.”

Answering critics who accuse the administration of losing its focus on Al Qaeda, Cheney insisted that Iraq could make such terrorists more dangerous by supplying them with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

“That is why confronting the threat posed by Iraq is not a distraction from the war on terror. It is absolutely crucial to winning the war on terror,” Cheney said. “Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror.”

Despite the administration’s focus on the Sunday deadline, it is likely to take days -- if not weeks -- to evaluate whatever information Iraq provides.

In Rice’s meeting with Blix, a central issue was how long it would take for Blix and his staff to analyze what Iraq discloses, diplomats said.

Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said no quick response is likely unless Iraq defies expectations and either fails to issue a declaration or submits one that is blatantly false. More likely, it will take the U.N. and the administration weeks to peruse the declaration.

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Times staff writers Esther Schrader in Washington and John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this story.