Iraq agrees to inspection plan

VIENNA, Austria -- Iraq agreed Tuesday to a plan for the return of U.N. weapons inspectors for the first time in nearly four years, but the deal ignores U.S. demands for access to Saddam Hussein's palaces and other contested sites.\nChief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said an advance team of inspectors could be in Iraq in two weeks if it gets the go-ahead from the U.N. Security Council.\nHe also said the agreement on logistics, hammered out in two days of talks in Vienna, called for "immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access" to most suspect sites.\nBut, he said, eight presidential sites -- 12 square miles of territory -- would remain off-limits to surprise inspections unless the U.N. Security Council bends to U.S. demands that all sites be subject to unannounced visits.\nUnder a 1998 deal worked out between U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Baghdad, the inspectors are not allowed to visit the presidential sites unannounced and must be accompanied by a team of international diplomats when they do.\nThe chief Iraqi negotiator, Gen. Amir al-Sadi, sought to deflect attention from the presidential sites.\n"Quite honestly, I don't understand why it is so critical," al-Sadi said, adding that on the whole, Baghdad was "happy with this agreement." He and Blix agreed that the issue of presidential sites had not been on the Vienna agenda.\n"We have come to a very practical arrangement, and we anticipate every inspection to go to a sensitive site," al-Sadi said.\nThe United States, meanwhile, moved negotiations on its tough new proposal for Iraq to the United Nations on Tuesday, meeting with permanent members of the Security Council opposed to authorizing force against Saddam before testing his willingness to cooperate.\nAt the meeting, ambassadors from the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China discussed the resolution's so-called "or else" clause which warns Saddam to cooperate or face military action from member states.\nThe draft resolution would also give member states the right to give military support to inspections.\nFrance and Russia vehemently oppose the U.S. position, with Paris floating its own proposal for a two-phased approach which would only authorize force if Iraq failed to cooperate with inspectors.\nBut a senior U.S. official in Washington told The Associated Press that all five veto-holding members agreed that a new system of inspections -- after a four year absence -- must be worked out to open Saddam's palaces.\nThe United States and Britain have drafted a new plan that would give Iraq seven days after adoption of the resolution to declare whether it would comply, and then 23 days to list all sites where weapons are stored, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.\nAlso, the resolution contains a provision giving inspectors the authority to declare "no-fly" and "no-drive" zones that would keep out Iraqi officials while the inspections proceed.\nThe State Department said any inspections should be deferred until a U.N. resolution is approved. However, spokesman Richard Boucher said the Bush administration had no objection to inspectors making arrangements in advance.\n"We continue to work with other members of the council to come up with a resolution that makes clear the need for thorough and unfettered inspections and the need for consequences if Iraq refuses to cooperate," Boucher said. "They really don't understand quite yet that they have to disarm, they have to cooperate."\nBlix, who was to brief the Security Council on Thursday, said the talks focused on practical aspects of the renewed inspections, such as where the inspectors would fly and their security on the ground. The Iraqis were unable to guarantee the safety of inspector aircraft that might cross "no-fly" zones in parts of Iraq, he said.\nThe Iraqis handed over four CDs containing a backlog of monitoring reports for suspect sites and items, spanning June 1998 to July 2002, Blix said. Although that information was not yet analyzed, it will provide important clues about Iraqi weapons activity, he said.\n"It was promised to us in New York, and I'm glad it came here," Blix said.\nHe said the Iraqis were serious about allowing the return of his team despite the continuing standoff on the presidential sites. "There is a willingness to accept inspections that has not existed before."\nBritain welcomed the agreement but said it did not replace the need for a tough new Security Council resolution.\n"I welcome the work of Hans Blix and his colleagues and look forward to his report to the Security Council," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said. "However, this work is not an alternative to the high priority we place on a new and tougher resolution in the Security Council."\nNearly four years ago, inspectors hunting for evidence of weapons of mass destruction withdrew from Iraq on the eve of U.S.-British airstrikes amid allegations that Baghdad was not cooperating with the teams.\nSanctions imposed on Iraq by the Security Council after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors certify that any weapons of mass destruction it possesses have been dismantled.\nBy the end of the 1991 Gulf War, IAEA assessments indicated Saddam was six months away from building an atomic bomb. Inspectors discovered the oil-rich nation had imported thousands of pounds of uranium, some of which was already refined for weapons use, and had considered two types of nuclear delivery systems.\nOver the next six years, inspectors seized the uranium, destroyed facilities and chemicals, dismantled over 40 missiles and confiscated thousands of documents.