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U.S. presses for limit to inspections

Kuwait News Agency

01/16/2003

WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (KUNA) -- In a clear signal that the Bush administration's patience is running out, Washington will press the United Nations Security Council Thursday to discard a timetable for inspections that could stretch into the summer, U.S. diplomats told the USA TODAY Thursday. U.S. diplomats will argue that November's Security Council resolution that sets Jan. 27 as the deadline for the inspectors to report, should replace a 1999 resolution, which instructs inspectors to give the council quarterly updates and offers Iraq a way to escape U.N. economic sanctions if it complies. The move reflects the Bush administration's belief that despite calls by nations such as France and Britain for more time for inspections, a briefing that chief weapons inspector Hans Blix will give the council Jan. 27 should begin a serious consideration by the council of whether Baghdad has disarmed, and if it has not, what should be done about it.

The U.S. is not opposed to allowing inspections to continue after the Blix briefing, though U.S. officials won't say how much longer.

Blix said last week that the inspections hadn't uncovered any "smoking guns.

" But the administration says Iraq already is out of compliance with the November resolution because it submitted an unsatisfactory declaration of its weapons programs and hasn't shown that it destroyed banned weapons discovered by previous inspections.

On growing campaign to launch an offensive against Iraq, the United States yesterday resisted calls by other nations that it secure the explicit blessing of the United Nations Security Council before going to war.

The White House further suggested that it could decide in favor of military action even if weapons inspectors do not turn up concrete new evidence against Saddam Hussein.

A day after President Bush said that "time is running out" on the Iraqi leader, a senior administration official said the timetable for decision about war would be "driven by events." Those include the Jan. 27 report and evidence on whether Saddam was complying with U.N. demands to disarm.

In another sign of growing frustration with what the White House views as stalling and evasion by Iraq, the official said that Saddam was intimidating his scientists into refusing to travel outside the country for interviews about Baghdad's weapons programs. Iraq claimed that none of its scientists want to travel outside Iraq.

"From that kind of regime, That's called marching orders," the official said. (end)