Iraq Says It Will Destroy Missiles

In its first significant move to dismantle a weapons system, Iraq said Friday that it would begin destroying its banned Al-Samoud 2 missiles today, complicating the Bush administration’s efforts to rally support for a new resolution paving the way for war.

The announcement sparked a fresh round of fierce public discord along now familiar fault lines, with those in favor of the resolution unswayed and those who support further U.N. weapons inspections insisting that it validated their position.

Calling dismantlement of the missiles only one small part of disarmament, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said the move is “propaganda wrapped in a lie, inside a falsehood.... Total disarmament is total disarmament is total disarmament. It’s not a piece of disarmament.”

But France, which leads the opposition to U.S. war plans, welcomed the announcement as clear evidence that weapons inspections are working and should continue.

“We still can work for peace,” French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said.

Iraq’s action on the missiles could mark a critical juncture in the 12-year Iraq disarmament saga. Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Friday that if Baghdad does follow through and destroys all the Al-Samoud missiles, estimated to number between 100 and 120, it would be “a very significant piece of real disarmament.”

And with Russia now publicly threatening to use its veto at the Security Council, the U.S. campaign to win support for a U.N. resolution allowing the use of force against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could be in serious trouble.

A day of diplomatic backsliding led discouraged U.S. officials to privately acknowledge that the U.N. vote could now go either way.

“It’s still a definite possible, but by no means definite,” said a senior administration official who requested anonymity.

Washington will decide whether to pull the resolution or see it through to a vote after Security Council discussions late next week on a new report by Blix, which was formally submitted Friday.

That discussion “has the potential to sway things one way or another. That’s the point where we see what we have and then make a decision about whether we want to go to the council or not. Part of the question will have to be: Do we want to let others veto it or not?” the official said. “There are arguments on both sides.”

Britain and Spain, co-sponsors of the resolution, stood firm Friday.

Dealing with the Al-Samoud missiles still leaves unresolved the status of thousands of tons of biological and chemical poisons developed into weaponry and unaccounted for since 1998, British Prime Minister Tony Blair charged in Madrid, saying, “This is not a time for games.”

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar called Baghdad’s announcement a deceitful ploy.

“This was expected,” Aznar told The Times on Friday. “I sincerely think that Saddam Hussein is not just playing with the United Nations, not just with the inspectors, he’s playing with the wishes for peace of the whole world. And this is part of that process.”

Blix had ordered the destruction of the missiles, demanding that the process begin by today, on the grounds that the rocket with the potential to deliver chemical and biological warheads had in some tests exceeded the 93-mile range limit set forth in prior Security Council resolutions.

Iraqi government sources who spoke to reporters in Baghdad said the destruction would take place this afternoon at an undisclosed location in the presence of U.N. inspectors.

Blix’s chief deputy, Demetrius Perricos, was in Iraq to confer with government liaison officers about the destruction of the missiles. He met with them for several hours Friday, and the talks were expected to resume today.

Among the issues that still must be resolved in the talks with Perricos are the pace and the manner of the destruction of the missiles.

Just a few days ago, Blix had said there had been “no full cooperation, no breakthroughs” on Iraq’s part. And his written report described Iraq’s disarmament efforts as “very limited so far.”

“It is hard to understand why a number of the measures which are now being taken could not have been initiated earlier. If they had been taken earlier, they might have borne fruit by now,” Blix wrote.

But on Friday, Blix told reporters that he would include the missile disposal as the first noteworthy example of cooperation on substance in the 100 days of inspections in Iraq when he meets with the Security Council late next week.

“The Iraqis are at the present time very active,” Blix said. “As reality changes, my report changes. Every report I submit is a snapshot of the situation when we write the report.”

Pressed on whether the glass is now half empty or half full, Blix replied, “It’s a glass in which they are pouring more water.”

A more positive report from Blix would put real pressure on the U.S. to either delay its bid for a vote to allow more time for inspections or abandon the U.N. process and go it alone with a small “coalition of the willing.”

Senior administration envoys pressed the case Friday in Chile and Pakistan, two key Security Council countries with so-called swing votes, while the State Department announced that three Chechen groups have been officially labeled terrorist organizations, a long-standing Russian request. President Bush has been lobbying Russia hard on the U.S.-backed resolution.

The White House also disputed interpretations of remarks by Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov indicating a possible veto of the proposed U.N. resolution. Noting that Ivanov had said Russia has “the right” to a veto, Fleischer said the remarks stated only “the obvious” about all five permanent Security Council members and did not indicate Russia would block the resolution.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also spoke Friday with President Paul Biya of Cameroon, one of three African nations with a swing vote, and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, whose nation is a Security Council member and opposed to war.

As the United States scrambled for support, the Arab League prepared for its annual summit today, a month early, to debate a common stand on Iraq. Powell has urged Arab leaders to persuade Hussein to step aside, but Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri dismissed the idea as “silly and trivial” and part of “dirty psychological warfare.”

Sabri instead called on Bush to resign.

“The one who should step down is the reckless despot, Mr. Bush himself, because he has made the United States the hated man, the ugly man -- No. 1 -- in the whole world,” Sabri said outside the Arab League meeting at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik.

“All the people are against the war,” he said. Bush, he added, is “threatening the peace and security of the world.”

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Wright reported from Washington and Daniszewski from Baghdad. Times staff writers Maggie Farley at the United Nations, Sebastian Rotella in Madrid and Alissa J. Rubin in Sharm el Sheik contributed to this report.