The United States yesterday rejected President Saddam Hussein's appeal for a dialogue with Iraq, saying it was more interested in Baghdad allowing UN weapons inspectors to do their job. "We're not interested in a dialogue. We're interested in compliance," the White House spokesman, Mr Mike McCurry, said.
Iraqi authorities have blocked US members of a UN arms inspection team from entering a weapons site, prompting the United Nations to halt inspections it carries out under terms of the 1991 Gulf War ceasefire.
A three-member UN mission is to arrive in Baghdad late today to meet Iraqi officials in an effort to resolve the crisis over the US inspectors.
Iraq's news agency, INA, quoted Mr Saddam as calling for a dialogue and saying the UN team was "supposed to come for a dialogue in order to put things in order".
But Mr McCurry said the team's mission was not to negotiate. "The dialogue should consist of spelling out the ways in which he will comply with the will of the international community as presented to him by the delegation that will meet with Iraqi officials." Mr McCurry, asked if the US was ruling out a unilateral use of force to make Iraq comply with post-Gulf War resolutions from the Security Council, said: "I'm not ruling anything in or out."
But he described the crisis as "fundamentally a dispute between the United Nations and Iraq. Saddam Hussein remains isolated from the entire united international community."
The Senate Democratic Leader, Senator Thomas Daschle, said yesterday there was "strong support" in Congress in the effort to force Mr Saddam to comply. Senator Daschle said he supports going through the UN but if that fails, "I would be prepared to support unilateral action".
He continued: "Saddam Hussein has to understand who's in charge."
Mr McCurry declined to specify a deadline for Mr Saddam to respond favourably but twice talked of events unfolding "this week". He said the international community was united against Iraq.
"As a matter of fact, Saddam Hussein's repeated defiance of relevant Security Council resolutions has served to unite the international community and there is a unanimous opinion that his current action is unacceptable," Mr McCurry said.
Meanwhile yesterday, an Iraqi ambassador in Abu Dhabi said Iraq was prepared for all possibilities including military confrontation with the US over the issue. "When we took this decision . . . we were expecting - as in the past - that America would take hostile positions, including the use of military means against Iraq," Mr Nabil Nijem, Iraq's ambassador to the Arab League, said. "Iraq is prepared for all possibilities and if there is an aggression there is no possibility but to confront it with all means." He was speaking during a break in an Arab solidarity conference in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
AFP adds:The Un Special Commissionj chairman, Mr Richard Butler, said yesterday a disarmament mission by a US spy plane used by the UN would go ahead, despite an Iraqi threat to shoot down the aircraft.
Mr nutler also confirmed that his arms inspectors would go back to work today "in the normal way in Iraq", with the full support of the 15-member Council.
The U-2 is a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft placed at the disposal of the Un arms inspectors by the United States.