IRAQ: The chief United Nations weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix, has begun discussions with Iraqi experts on practical arrangements for the return of UN inspectors to Baghdad. They said last night they would meet again in Vienna in 10 days. The swift response to Iraq's decision on Monday to readmit weapons inspectors without conditions came yesterday as the UN Security Council met informally in New York to consider the new development.
Ireland was one of a majority of nine or 10 of the 15 security council members who asked Dr Blix to speak to the council as soon as possible about the practicalities of a return of weapons inspectors, a UN diplomat said. Following off- the-record contacts, the delegate from Bulgaria, which holds the presidency of the council, was asked to invite Dr Blix to address the members today.
The Iraqi move has taken the initiative away from the US and Britain, who were pressing before the announcement from Baghdad for a tough security council resolution giving Baghdad a deadline to comply on weapons inspection.
The United States and Russia, two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, disagreed openly about the next step in the crisis. The White House, expressing deep scepticism about the Iraqi offer, wants the Security Council to pass a resolution authorising all necessary measures against Iraq if weapons inspectors are obstructed, as happened before they were withdrawn in 1998.
The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said: "The only way to ensure that it is not business as usual and to make sure that it is not a repeat of the past, is to put it in the form of a new UN resolution."
Accompanying Mr Powell as he spoke at a UN press conference, the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, said: "From our standpoint we don't need any special resolution. All necessary decisions about that are on hand."
Mr Ivanov was referring to several UN resolutions passed since 1991 requiring Iraq to end its programme of weapons of mass destruction and allow ongoing verification. Resolution 1284 on resuming inspections, passed in 1999, provides for inspectors to return and a lifting of sanctions if successful.
Mr Bush later said: "For the sake of liberty and justice for all, the United Nations Security Council must act, must act in a way to hold this regime to account, must not be fooled, must be relevant to keep the peace."
If the US and Britain seek approval for a new tougher resolution, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, would be consulted on Ireland's position as one of the 10 elected members of the Security Council, an official at the Irish mission said. There was considerable support in the Security Council for the attitude of France which wanted to hold off until later a resolution to authorise the use of military force, depending on how the weapons inspections proceed.
Dr Blix, the executive chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, discussed offices, flights, escorts and other logistics with Mr Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate and Mr Saeed Hasan, Iraq's former ambassador to the United Nations, a UN official said.
The UN weapons inspectorate has a staff of 63 in New York, some of whom could travel quickly to Baghdad to beging analysing Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear programmes.
A Vienna-based UN team of nuclear weapons inspector from the International Atomic Energy Commission who work in tandem with Dr Blix's Commission, could leave for Iraq quickly, the group said yesterday. Their inspectors come from 11 countries - France, Britain, Russia, China, Ireland, Egypt, Austria, Canada, India, the Netherlands and the Philippines.
UN weapons inspectors arrived in Iraq following the Gulf War under resolutions which tied disarmament to the lifting of UN sanctions. The inspectors were obstructed and left in December 1998.
The UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, said yesterday that Security Council members could not return to "business as usual" given Iraq's past history.