United States intelligence indicates that last month's damaging air raids on Iraq killed key government officials and have left President Saddam Hussein increasingly desperate, the Pentagon's most senior general claimed yesterday.
Gen Henry Shelton, head of the US Joint Chiefs-of-Staff, told reporters that the losses of key advisers, the deaths of as many as 1,600 elite Republican Guard troops and others, and widespread military damage had obviously shaken President Saddam.
Separately, US Marine Gen Anthony Zinni told a news conference that one sign of President Saddam's worries about his hold on power was in southern Iraq, where recent military executions included that of a division commander.
Meanwhile, in the controversy over alleged spying carried out by Unscom, the UN Special Commission for weapons inspections in Iraq, a US spokesman said it can live without the UN weapons commission for Iraq.
While reiterating support for Unscom, the State Department appeared sceptical that the UN inspectors would be able to resume the work of ferreting out Iraqi weapons.
"We would like to see an effective Unscom going back in there, and only an effective Unscom going back in there," said the State Department spokesman, Mr James Foley. "In the absence of that, we can live with the status quo," he added.
The State Department asserted that it would not accept changes that would weaken Unscom, nor would it allow the inspectors to return to Iraq if it would be to face further obstruction.
The remarks came one day after a controversy over intelligence links between Unscom and the United States heated up following news reports of US eavesdropping during the UN-mandated inspections. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the UN arms inspectors had used a sophisticated eavesdropping device that automatically transmitted signals from President Saddam's presidential communications network to the US National Security Agency.
United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq had intelligence-sharing deals with five nations including the United States but not France or Russia, a former inspector, Mr Scott Ritter, was quoted as saying yesterday.
Mr Ritter told the French daily Liberation that the United Nations Special Commission charged with eliminating Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction had made agreements to provide the five countries with information it collected in return for the sharing of their own intelligence.
In an interview conducted on Thursday in New York, Mr Ritter said Unscom was not forbidden from passing on the information it gathered to other governments, so long as its head, Mr Richard Butler, authorised the arrangement.
He said he himself had met officials of the French secret services to propose such a deal with Paris. But France turned down the offer, according to Mr Ritter, concluding that "by helping us, they would only help Unscom discover that Iraq was cheating".