The German Chancellor has welcomed Iraq's offer on weapons inspectors and has told the United Nations he is ready to make available German chemical and biological weapons experts. Mr Gerhard Schröder said the move by Baghdad proved right his government's opposition to military action, a stance which has won over voters ahead of Sunday's general election.
"This was always our aim, that the UN weapons inspectors would be let back in," Mr Schröder said yesterday. "We always viewed any other aim as wrong. That's why this decision is to be welcomed."
Mr Joschka Fischer, the foreign minister, at an election rally in Hamburg, said the move was a step in the right direction. "If it is meant seriously, then a war has been successfully prevented. Now it's about making clear to Iraq that avoiding a tragedy for Iraq and the entire region lies in Baghdad's hands."
Mr Edmund Stoiber, the conservative challenger, welcomed the decision but said it had wrong-footed the chancellor and left Germany isolated. "The only government that was against applying pressure, aside from Iraq itself, was the German government," Mr Stoiber said. "Mr Schröder did not contribute to this chance of a peaceful solution."
With just four days to the general election, the government and opposition worked furiously yesterday to spin the offer from Baghdad. Mr Schröder's "no military misadventures" stance annoyed Washington and London but proved useful in the election campaign.
Opinion poll analysts credit this stance, along with his swift handling of the floods crisis, for putting the government ahead of the opposition for the first time in months last weekend.
Yesterday's offer of technical assistance, made in a telephone conversation with the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, could be an attempt to spin out the Iraq question until the weekend election. However the conservatives, who lost ground on the Iraq issue after a policy U-turn, now plan to direct voters' attention elsewhere. They have announced plans to dismantle the government's liberal immigration legislation in the hope of winning over undecided voters.
A new poll yesterday from the conservative-friendly Allensbach Institute put the Christian Democrats (CDU) less than one percentage point ahead of the Social Democrats. "The CDU is going to win on Sunday, but it's going to be a photo-finish," said Mr Laurenz Meyer, the CDU's general secretary.
