Defiant Iraq rejects UN inspections

The United Nations Security Council moved closer to setting Saddam Hussein a deadline for the speedy return of weapons inspectors yesterday, just hours after Baghdad rejected President George Bush's demands for compliance.

In a sign of the growing international consensus, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said in New York last night that foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council had agreed on the principle of Iraq being given a deadline.

Although a specific deadline had not been set, Mr Straw said: "There is a very clear understanding that ... to get those weapons inspectors back then that has to mean a time-limit.'' The move followed earlier demands by Mr Bush and the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, for such a deadline to be set.

A statement by the five permanent members ­ Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States ­ said Iraq had to comply with UN resolutions. Significantly, the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, added: "If he refuses to cooperate with the UN Security Council, the Iraqi government will take responsibility itself for possible consequences." Russia had previously been highly cautious about threatening Iraq.

In Baghdad's first top level response to the virtual ultimatum delivered to the UN by Mr Bush on Thursday, the Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, raised Iraq's now familiar objection: that inspections were pointless because America was bent on toppling the regime, whatever the outcome of the inspections themselves.

"The return of inspectors without conditions will not solve the problem ... because we have had a bad experience with them," Mr Aziz, right, said in an interview with an Arab satellite station, referring to the US and British air attacks after the inspectors left Iraq in December 1998. "Why repeat an experience that failed and did not prevent aggression?"

Mr Aziz, who was President Saddam's Foreign Minister in the 1991 Gulf War, suggested that this time, too, the flurry of diplomatic manoeuvres in New York was merely a device to delay an attack for four or five months until after the inspectors had completed their mission.

Mr Bush declared himself "highly doubtful" that President Saddam would meet Washington's demands and expressed the hope that the Security Council would act on the issue within "days or weeks".

The urgency was underlined by General Powell, who is regarded as the leading moderate in the Bush inner circle, who said in an interview with ABC TV: "There has to be deadlines this time. In the absence of deadlines, the Iraqis will string us out, will try to negotiate away or simply ignore the resolution." However, the US has still to win over the remaining 10 elected members of the Security Council, of which Bulgaria now holds the presidency.

Britain, the most unequivocal supporter of the US among the European allies, was also forthright. Mr Straw, who is due to address the General Assembly today, said Iraq would agree to the return of the inspectors only if it was "written on their eyeballs" that the alternative was military action. "Everyone understands that, with this regime, we have to make clear to them that the alternative is the use of force ­ that is the dismal truth."

As General Powell put it, the "heavy lifting" at the UN would start next week with two crucial issues unresolved: how Russia and China ­ which have veto powers ­ will vote, and whether there will be a single resolution, or two as suggested by the French President, Jacques Chirac. Britain and America want one resolution, both setting a deadline and making clear the consequences if it is not met.

They fear the French variant, in which the follow-up would not be decided until President Saddam was in breach of the deadline, would give the Iraqi dictator room to prevaricate, as he has done in the past.

Russia has been opposed to any attack but American officials believe it can be bought off with assurances that its substantial economic interests in Iraq would be preserved under a new regime. The US has rejected suggestions that it might permit Russia to attack alleged Chechen rebel bases in Georgia in return for Russian acquiescence over Iraq.