Inspectors Arrive in Iraq

United Nations weapons inspectors returned to Iraq on Monday for the first time in nearly four years, backed by the threat of force and the authority to search anywhere, any time, for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons -- even in Saddam Hussein’s lavish palaces.

Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohammed Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, immediately sought to calm fears that their arrival in Baghdad brought the region closer to war.

“We have come here for one single reason, and that is the world wants to have assurance that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” Blix said shortly after landing at Saddam Hussein International Airport.

Credible inspections are “in the interests of Iraq and the interests of the world,” he said.

The United States has threatened to attack Iraq if it does not cooperate with the inspectors, who are operating under a tough new U.N. Security Council resolution that gives Baghdad “a final opportunity” to disarm and warns of serious consequences if it does not.

The first test of Iraq’s intentions could come as early as Nov. 27, when, Blix said, preliminary checks are scheduled to begin. Perhaps the more important date is Dec. 8, the deadline for Iraq to file a list of any banned weapons programs. The second deadline appears to signal a conflict waiting to happen, since Iraq insists it has no such programs.

Both the United States and Iraq have stoked the uncertainty surrounding the inspections, each doing all it can to keep the other guessing.

Iraq’s parliament, though relatively powerless, made a show of voting against accepting the return of weapons inspectors the day before Hussein’s foreign minister notified U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Iraq would abide by the resolution.

As Blix and his crew were preparing Monday for high-tech equipment to be unloaded from their cargo jet, Iraqi ground forces and U.S. fighter jets were firing at one another in the so-called no-fly zone over the northern part of the country.

The Bush administration has said that it will give inspections a chance but that firing at U.S. warplanes patrolling the no-fly zones in the north and south might well be considered a “material breach” of the U.N. resolution -- and, if confirmed by the Security Council, could trigger an attack.

White House officials said Monday that U.S. warplanes would continue to fire back when targeted by the Iraqis but that the Bush administration was not ready to take the matter to the Security Council.

“I would emphasize that this goes to showing [Hussein’s] intention to comply and cooperate,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. “But in the meantime, our aircraft will respond when fired upon.

“Our view is zero tolerance, that Saddam Hussein does not need to be playing games at this point. No cat and mouse. It is time for him to comply and cooperate and disarm,” McClellan said.

The White House might encounter tough going if it decides to ask the Security Council to consider the firing at the warplanes a “material breach.” When the council voted unanimously this month to back Resolution 1441, many of the members made it clear they would not accept a rush to war.

Russian Ambassador Sergei V. Lavrov received assurances from British diplomats that firing in the no-fly zones would not be considered a trigger for an attack. British officials held to that view Monday.

“We don’t consider 1441 to be about the enforcement of the no-fly zones,” a British diplomat said. “A potshot in the no-fly zone is a black mark, but in our view of 1441, it is not a material breach.”

Diplomats said the tough talk from the White House, while distressing to the United States’ Security Council allies, might be a way of keeping pressure on Baghdad while inspections begin. But retaliatory attacks on Iraqi military installations might also help U.S. and British forces destroy Baghdad’s defense capabilities before an all-out war.

In recent days, Baghdad has sought to make it clear that although it agreed to the return of weapons inspectors, it did not do so meekly.

In an interview on British television, Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz suggested that if Iraq was hit, U.S. and British allies in the Middle East would be targeted.

“We are an old nation, and we could survive,” he said. “But I tell you, if the U.S. and U.K. wage a war against Iraq, the consequences will be very bad to them and their friends in the region.”

The Iraqi newspaper Babel, which is owned by Hussein’s eldest son, Uday, said in an editorial Monday that “our country is free of weapons of mass destruction.... Those unjust Americans, as well as others, should leave the Security Council alone and end the unjust siege imposed on us.”

The Iraqi newspaper Al Thawra, the mouthpiece of the president’s ruling Baath Socialist Party, said in a front-page editorial that the previous U.N. inspection team was “an American organization to spy on Iraq.” It added that it hoped the new teams do not include spies for the United States.

“The authority given to the inspectors is so high I just don’t see how they will function,” said Wamidh Nadhmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University. “Perhaps it is intended this way -- that any clash between the two sides might give the U.S. administration a pretext for its war aims.”

And while Blix was trying to calm tensions in the region, he was struggling against a widespread feeling that no matter what the inspectors find, the U.S. is committed to going after Hussein.

“From when the countdown began, Iraq was going to be affected,” said Farid Khazen, a political science professor at American University in Beirut. “At best, the regime will be besieged. At worst, the regime will be removed.”

The last weapons inspectors were pulled out of Iraq nearly four years ago. Baghdad charged that there were spies on the team, and the United States complained that Iraq was using the accusation as an excuse to obstruct the inspectors. After the team withdrew, the U.S. and Britain waged a four-day bombing campaign.

Baghdad never allowed the inspectors to return and embarked on a diplomatic and economic campaign to get around the United Nations.

Since it invaded Kuwait in 1990, Iraq has been saddled with severe trade sanctions that can be removed only if inspectors verify that it has destroyed any weapons of mass destruction along with the means to create them.

The sanctions started crumbling as countries such as Russia, France and Turkey sought to gain a foothold in the oil-rich Iraqi economy. But that came to a halt this year as the Bush administration turned its focus to Hussein.

Blix, a 74-year-old Swede, was called out of retirement to head the inspection teams. He has tried to win the confidence of both sides, saying that although he cannot guarantee that there won’t be spies on his staff, he would remove them if any were discovered. He has also said he would take a hard line with Baghdad.

“The question of war and peace remains first of all in the hands of Iraq, the Security Council and the members of the Security Council,” Blix said Sunday in Cyprus, where he and Baradei joined about two dozen other members of the advance team before heading out.

Annan had an even more direct assessment of Baghdad’s responsibility. “I urge President Saddam Hussein to comply fully with the council’s demands, for the sake of his people, regional security and world order,” he said in a statement.

*

Times staff writers Maura Reynolds in Washington and Maggie Farley at the United Nations contributed to this report.