UN: Two former UN arms inspectors have given differing interpretations of the stand-off between Iraq and the United States. Mr Richard Butler yesterday expressed scepticism regarding Iraq's offer to readmit weapons inspectors without conditions.
"It is a very snaky letter," Mr Butler said of the Iraqi letter received on Monday by the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan.
In an interview with CNN, Mr Butler noted the omission of the word "unfettered". "Without unfettered access, we haven't got a snowball's chance in hell," he said. "Come back to the country without conditions sounds good, but we really needed to hear 'you can inspect without conditions'."
Mr Scott Ritter (below bottom), who left Iraq in 1998, yesterday said Saddam Hussein agreed to let weapons inspectors back because the alternative would be the destruction of Iraq. "Saddam knows that it would be suicide" to not allow inspectors to return, Mr Ritter said.
He dismissed President Bush's contention that a military strike must be considered because Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction and said claims that Iraq was close to possessing nuclear weapons as "fantastical" and "absurdist". - (Reuters/AFP)