Russia Has Advice for Inspectors

Russia on Friday urged U.N. weapons inspectors returning to Baghdad to focus on their work and avoid a repetition of their departure four years ago, which triggered U.S.-led airstrikes against Iraq.

Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said the United Nations experts, whose advance party is due in the Iraqi capital Monday, should establish how Baghdad has built up its arsenal since inspections ended.

“We need now to compare the current state of affairs with that which existed at the end of 1998, when the former head of the U.N. commission, Richard Butler, unilaterally withdrew his colleagues from Iraq,” Fedotov told the Itar-Tass news agency.

“That was how he cleared the way for strikes against that country,” he said. Russia had bitterly criticized the Australian diplomat for not consulting the U.N. Security Council.

Butler ordered his inspectors out of Iraq after complaining that Baghdad was not cooperating with them. A U.S.-British bombing blitz followed.

Moscow, a Baghdad ally from the Soviet days with key oil interests in Iraq, wants to ensure that U.N. weapons inspections are not used by Washington to justify a military invasion to oust President Saddam Hussein, a stated U.S. policy goal.