U.S. Looking at Use of ‘Coercive Inspections’

In a bid to forge a global strategy toward Iraq and prevent any wiggle room for President Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration is exploring tough proposals that would force Baghdad to quickly open its doors to aggressive weapons inspections or face immediate punitive action, according to U.S. officials.

The proposals center on “coercive inspections,” which would speed the search for weapons and potentially even back up the inspectors with thousands of U.S. or multinational troops deployed in or around Iraq.

One idea under consideration suggests that if inspectors are turned away from a site suspected of producing or hiding weapons of mass destruction, foreign troops could shoot their way in, say sources familiar with the proposals.

Another idea for the “comply or else” effort suggests that inspectors go quickly to the most sensitive Iraqi sites suspected of links to nuclear, biological or chemical weapons or ballistic missiles. If Baghdad refused access, the inspectors would report immediately to the U.N., with the implicit understanding that a single refusal could provoke or justify a full military assault to oust the regime.

Judging from his past actions, Hussein may be reluctant to accept any such proposals. But if the Bush administration could rally international support for a common strategy, Hussein might feel significant new pressure from U.S. allies who have otherwise been reluctant to back military force.

“The thinking is still in the early stages, but coercive inspections are one way of bringing the international community into the planning of what happens next. It could also serve as a casus belli [cause for justifying war] when the Iraqis refuse to abide by it, as they will,” said a well-placed U.S. official who requested anonymity.

Some of the proposals may require a new U.N. resolution, particularly if Iraq is called on to accept the deployment of foreign troops. Although debate is likely to be vigorous, U.S. officials predicted, other members of the Security Council may end up supporting the tough proposals as a way to avoid an imminent war.

They are also an alternative to previous inspections, which proved unsuccessful at tracking down weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad dragged what was supposed to be an 18-month process, begun at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, into almost eight years of U.N. inspections, which continued until 1998--when the last team departed because of looming U.S.-led airstrikes. Iraq has refused to allow the inspectors to return.

As currently structured, the U.N. inspections call for a methodical--and very slow--process of first building a baseline of suspected sites and then systematically tracking down weapons, equipment and documents and setting up monitors to ensure that facilities are not used again for arms production. Creating a baseline could take as long as a year, if done properly, and would delay Washington’s ability to act militarily, according to former weapons inspectors.

Coercive sanctions also are designed to avoid a fatal flaw from the earlier inspectors’ standoffs with the Iraqi government. In a 1992 episode at Baghdad’s Ministry of Agriculture, U.N. inspectors were kept from entering the building as Iraqi officials were seen carrying boxes of documents related to nuclear programs out the back door.

Because the U.N. inspections had no backup, the incident passed without consequences--and former inspectors are not sure to this day that they obtained all the documents.

In the past, the chief weapons inspector was mandated to chronicle violations and report them to the Security Council every few months.

The new proposals reflect the growing debate on inspections as the focus shifts from military strategy to the political challenges of confronting Baghdad. What to do about the inspections process, mandated by the United Nations and long supported by the United States, is the question on which the timing--and perhaps the outcome--of the administration’s confrontation with Iraq may now turn.

Iraq said Tuesday that it was prepared to discuss the return of inspectors, but only in the context of lifting economic sanctions and ending foreign intervention.

“If anybody can have a magic solution so that all these issues are being dealt with together, equitably and reasonably, we are ready to find such a solution, and we are ready to cooperate with the United Nations,” Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz said after talks with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at an international summit on development being held in South Africa. “Sanctions, the continuous aggression, threats of war--all these issues have to be addressed.”

After their talks, Annan said Iraq had not moved any closer to accepting inspections, even though the majority of countries on the Security Council want them resumed.

The new focus on how to make inspections more robust reflects the growing skepticism in Washington over their effectiveness under the old rules of engagement--and the quandary over how to accommodate long-standing U.N. resolutions and virtual unanimity around the world about sending the inspectors back.

Vice President Dick Cheney last week questioned whether returning inspectors to Iraq would ever lead to disarmament. Inspections that fail to eliminate weapons of mass destruction would be “useless,” he said. Yet over the weekend, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told the BBC that returning the inspectors should be America’s “first step.”

The seeming gap in statements doesn’t mean anyone in the administration rejects inspections, White House officials said Tuesday.

“The vice president was saying that the last ones didn’t work because Saddam Hussein was pulling cheat-and-retreat tricks right under the U.N. noses. But that doesn’t mean all inspections in the future will not work. There has to be a more robust inspections regime in place to ensure Iraq is disarmed,” said Mary Matalin, counselor to the vice president.

At the Pentagon on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld charged that Iraq has been playing the U.N. inspections process “like a guitar, plucking the right string and the right process at the right moment. And then you’ll find at the last moment, they’ll withdraw that carrot and go back into their other mode of thumbing their nose at the international community.”

The various proposals on coercive inspections, which are now being circulated within the administration and some of which are outlined in a report to be released Friday by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, would accommodate the concerns within the administration as well as the outside world, according to the sources familiar with the talks.

Congress also is getting into the debate. Though many on Capitol Hill welcome renewed inspections, they also remain skeptical about how the inspections would substantially alter the situation. Some are now indicating support for toughened rules of engagement.

Inspections are widely viewed as a step that must be taken to demonstrate Hussein’s recalcitrance and to help build international support for military action.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.) believes that strict conditions can be added to ensure that the inspections are meaningful.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has suggested giving Iraq a two-week deadline to get inspectors on the ground. “What the administration worries about, with some justification, is some long, drawn-out, word-parsing exercise that would stretch out to months,” he said.

But Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) remained skeptical. “If they did let inspectors back in, would they really be able to locate the right location and find out what they were up to?” he said.

The White House has invited congressional leaders today for talks on the administration’s thinking and plans on Iraq. President Bush, Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice will brief lawmakers in the morning, and Rumsfeld will brief them at closed hearings in the afternoon.

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Times staff writers Janet Hook in Washington and Kenneth R. Weiss in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this report.