Hussein Blunts U.S. Game Plan

The game has begun.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, playing for time and the life of his regime, has ceded a point to the United States in hopes of slowing the diplomatic blitz against him. After balking for four years, he will allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into his country.

But that’s all Hussein is doing, U.S. officials warn. The view from Washington is that nothing has really changed. “We’ve seen this game before,” Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said curtly after talks Tuesday at the United Nations.

Yet the leader of Iraq may have scored a point or two with other key nations, including some of the five permanent members of the Security Council who have veto power and Arab countries whose assistance would be crucial to any U.S. military campaign.

Their view is that diplomacy now has a chance, that the U.N. should not be too hasty in condoning the use of force.

In other words, new diplomatic cleavage has emerged less than a week into the Bush administration’s global initiative to confront Iraq.

Hussein’s strategy, designed to divide and prevail, rather abruptly undermined Washington’s game plan at the world body--at least for the short term. It also forced the Bush administration to look for supporters all over again, according to U.N. diplomats.

“It certainly changes the mood on the Security Council. Our battle is to get the U.N. to focus on the last 10 years rather than the last 10 minutes,” a senior State Department official conceded.

The Bush administration had expected Iraq to eventually allow the weapons inspectors to return in a last-ditch effort to forestall military action. But it was taken by surprise when the offer came even before the U.S. could win passage of a U.N. resolution forcing Baghdad’s hand, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.

The United States and other U.N. members now view the issue of Iraq from different perspectives--and potentially with different solutions, experts warn.

“U.S. instincts will be to proceed as if nothing happened and to continue toward a U.N. resolution and congressional approval,” said Judith Yaphe, an Iraq expert and former intelligence analyst now at National Defense University in Washington. “The problem will be that those who welcomed our actions at the U.N. just last week and were willing to sign on to the kind of activities we wanted in a resolution may shift again. Many are now welcoming Saddam’s overture. Others see change where we see none.”

The Security Council, particularly the permanent members, appeared split Tuesday on what happens next.

Russia’s position in the days ahead may prove the most critical. Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov said Tuesday that Moscow no longer sees a need for a new U.N. resolution either spelling out what Baghdad must do or warning of specific consequences should it not cooperate.

And many nations in or near the Middle East expressed relief that the tension that had been building since President Bush’s speech to the General Assembly last Thursday calling for action against Hussein’s rule has dissipated.

“Iraq’s offer gives us some breathing room,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said in an interview. “The situation is not solved, but it’s a very good first step.

“This is what the U.N. asked for, and this is what it got,” he added. “We’re now one step back from the threshold of war, and we’re going to try to work through the process to give peace a chance.”

After a week of building a new consensus, the United States found itself just trying to keep the ball rolling Tuesday. Bush warned that the world “must not be fooled” by Iraq’s offer.

In U.N. corridors, meetings with allies and a flurry of telephone calls, U.S. officials struggled to keep the focus on a new resolution or resolutions.

Washington would like to have a tentative draft for circulation by Thursday, according to U.N. diplomats.

The core of the U.S. counter-argument is that Hussein, rather cleverly, made no pledge either to let the weapons inspectors do their job or to surrender any weapons of mass destruction that the Iraqis might have.

“This is just his latest overture. It’s an attempt to circumvent the will of the international community. Iraq’s letter doesn’t address the substance or the ultimate goal of the inspections. It doesn’t even mention disarming--only the logistics of the inspectors,” said the senior State Department official, who requested anonymity.

The new divide may play out on both the number of resolutions and the timing. Instead of getting one sweeping and immediate resolution that would include the right to use force if the process of arms inspection and elimination again breaks down, the United States may have to settle for two resolutions--and possibly a lengthy delay in passage of the second.

The first resolution would call for Iraqi compliance and the second would deal with the consequences for the lack of it, U.N. diplomats predict.

Ultimately, the administration says, it is confident that the result will be the same.

“We view this only as an eleventh-hour move to distract the debate,” the State Department official said of Hussein’s offer. “Our message to others on the Security Council: We need to stay the course. He is only reacting as we’re unified in our approach.”

But analysts predict that Iraq’s move may change the timing of the conflict--dragging it out over many months rather than wrapping it up quickly--and add to the diplomatic burden for the U.S. in seeing it through.

“Nothing is now likely to happen immediately,” said Yaphe, the Iraq expert.

“This is not a TV show with a quiet denouement.”

Already, Iraq on Tuesday brought up old arguments that implied some limits on the inspections. Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, Hussein’s front man with the outside world, said the U.N. teams should finish within a “reasonable time” and not overstep their mission.

He also said the inspections should culminate with the lifting of U.N. economic sanctions--never mentioning a host of other U.N. resolutions, covering issues ranging from the release of prisoners to human rights violations, that Bush told the United Nations must be enforced.