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Iraq agrees to meet December 8 UN deadline
( 2002-11-20 10:02 ) (7 )

Iraq vowed on Tuesday to meet a UN December 8 deadline to produce a full account of its weapons programme and said the world body's inspectors would be given complete access to all sites.

"Within 30 days, as the (UN) resolution says, a report from Iraq will be submitted on all the files -- nuclear, chemical, biological and missile files," President Saddam Hussein's adviser General Amir al-Saadi told reporters.

Under a UN Security Council resolution adopted on November 8, the first big test is the December 8 deadline for Iraq to submit a full account of all banned weapons programmes. By January 27 the inspectors must have given their first report to the Security Council.

The United States has accused Baghdad of possessing weapons of mass destruction and has threatened to launch a war against Iraq if it does not disarm.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he had been given assurances by Saadi and Iraq's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri that Baghdad would meet the December 8 deadline.

"I think they made it very clear and understandable that their declaration has to come before December 8. They are working on compiling that declaration," ElBaradei said.

"What we confirm...today to Iraq is the need that the declaration of December 8 should be comprehensive, accurate and complete."

ElBaradei and chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix returned to Baghdad on Monday with an advance team of 30 experts after a four-year break in UN arms monitoring in Iraq.

"We are hopeful. We are in fact quite sure that things will work much better than before," said Saadi.

BAGHDAD PROMISES UN FULL ACCESS

Asked if the inspectors would have unfettered access to all sites in Iraq, Saadi said: "Yes, that is as stipulated in the resolution and as we have agreed with them."

Blix described the talks as constructive and said they had agreed on many practical arrangements and had produced a mechanism to resolve problems that may arise in the future.

"So we look forward to starting inspections in about a week's time," he said.

As inspectors dusted out old offices, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Iraq's firing on U.S. and British aircraft enforcing "no-fly" zones over northern and southern parts of the country did not violate the UN resolution -- contrary to a U.S. interpretation.

The day after the return of weapons inspectors, the Iraqi media again accused the United States of plotting to go to war against Baghdad.

"The problem is not related to the arrival of the inspectors or starting their work in Iraq," al-Iraq newspaper said in a front-page editorial. "The American regime wants to launch an aggression under the pretext that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction."

U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Prague for a NATO summit where he will seek political support for his hardline policy against Iraq, although he has signalled that he will make no request for military help from the 19-nation bloc.

Bush has said the inspections, on the tough terms set out in Security Council resolution 1441, are Baghdad's last chance to abandon peacefully its alleged chemical, biological and nuclear arms programmes.

DIFFERING U.S. AND UN VIEWS

Washington says that Iraqi fire on U.S. and British aircraft -- a frequent event -- is a breach of UN provisions. But on Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said: "We're not looking for triggers. We are looking for Iraqi compliance and disarmament. And we'll continue watching that very closely in coming days."

Annan, speaking in the Kosovo capital Pristina, told reporters: "Let me say that I don't think that the Council will say this is in contravention of the resolution of the Security Council."

Key Security Council member Russia also said the U.S. argument had "no legal grounds", but France urged Iraq to avoid "any act...that could accentuate tensions".

In London, a Foreign Office source reaffirmed that Britain sought other justifications under international law for the zones, but the new resolution was not one of them.

In the latest incident, U.S. and British warplanes raided Iraqi air defences on Monday. The no-fly zones were set up after the 1991 Gulf War that drove Iraqi invasion forces from Kuwait.

Iraq said on Tuesday the attacks had been on civilian targets and that four people had been hurt.

In Baghdad, the inspectors' spokesman Ewen Buchanan said team members were putting the UN's monitoring centre in Baghdad's former Canal Hotel back into action.

"There's a lot of dust to clear out," he said.

"We need to get new computers in and we need to get new communications equipment to re-establish secure communications. We need to get transportation arranged, radios, and to get the laboratory up and running."

The initial inspection team proper, consisting of about a dozen people, is expected to arrive around November 25, with inspections starting two days later. At full strength, there will be some 100 inspectors.

"There will be a range of (inspection) sites, civilian and military...hundreds, possibly," Buchanan said. Under the terms of the UN resolution, the team will give Iraqi authorities no advance notice of where they will look.

UN Security Council diplomats said on Tuesday the Council was expected later this week to extend for another six months the humanitarian programme that lets Iraq sell oil to buy food and other civilian goods.