Iraq Doesn’t Back Away From Threats Hussein Dismisses U.N. Mediators As U.S. Ponders Retaliation

Hopes for a quick and peaceful resolution to Iraq’s confrontation with international weapons inspectors dimmed Friday when Saddam Hussein dismissed a U.N. effort to mediate the dispute and President Clinton said he sees no evidence that Baghdad is prepared to back down.

In a bleak assessment of the crisis, Clinton said there is no indication that the Iraqis are retreating from threats to expel American members of the U.N. arms control team from Iraq and shoot down a U.S. reconnaissance plane assigned to the disarmament mission.

Pressed at a Washington news conference about whether he sees any reason for hope of an Iraqi compromise, the president said, “No, I don’t.”

Clinton declined to discuss whether the United States is considering a military strike against Iraq but called on the U.N. Security Council to be “resolute and firm” in upholding the inspection program, which is intended to destroy the Iraqi president’s ability to wage biological, chemical and nuclear warfare.

“The international community has to be firm to make sure that his regime does not resume its capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

U.S. officials suggested that the military option is being held in reserve and that as a first step the American ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, will ask the Security Council, perhaps as early as Monday, to toughen existing sanctions on Hussein’s regime.

Richardson said the council should apply “incremental pressure” on Iraq to reverse its position.

The atmosphere here at U.N. headquarters was grim in the wake of these developments Friday:

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s three mediators left Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, after failing to persuade Hussein to back down. The three - Lakhdar Brahimi of Algeria, Emilio Cardenas of Argentina and Jan Eliasson of Sweden - will return to New York on Sunday, carrying a letter from Hussein, to confer with Annan. The U.N. refused to release the letter Friday, but it is apparently a formal rejection of the mediation effort. On Monday, the trio will report to the Security Council, which could respond with new sanctions against Iraq.

The U.N. mediation initiative was designed to give Hussein a graceful means of retreat by portraying his reversal on the inspection issue as a favor to Annan. But the Iraqi leader refused to follow that script. Instead, the Iraqi government used the visit to repeat assertions that the U.N. weapons commission is a cover for American espionage, a claim described as “nonsense” by Richard Butler, the Australian diplomat who leads the inspection team.

Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, said he will visit the United Nations to plead Iraq’s case to Security Council members. He is expected to arrive in New York on Sunday. At a news conference in Baghdad, Aziz said Iraq wants “constructive dialogue” with the U.N. but repeated assertions that Butler’s commission is a puppet of the U.S. government.

“The Special Commission is supposed to be a United Nations organ,” he said. “That means an international organ … Actually, it has been an American organ.”

The commission was created by the Security Council as part of the agreement ending the 1991 Persian Gulf War, in which an American-led coalition expelled an Iraqi occupying force from Kuwait. It must certify that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction before the Security Council can lift economic sanctions on Iraq.

Butler said that for the fifth consecutive day, U.N. officials were barred by Iraqi authorities from carrying out inspections because the team refused to exclude Americans. Butler said members of the team were told not to give their nationalities when asked by the Iraqis and instead to identify themselves as U.N. employees. There are six Americans on the 100-member weapons team on duty in Baghdad.

Officials here fear that the Iraqis are using the pause to resume chemical and biological weapons development and to hide evidence of their efforts.

Despite repeated threats by Iraq to shoot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane on loan to the U.N., Butler said the plane will enter Iraqi airspace Monday. He dismissed Aziz’s assertion that the plane’s actual mission is to identify targets for a U.S. airstrike.

A senior Defense Department official told the Associated Press that an attack on the unarmed U-2, which is piloted by an American, would be considered an act of war. Richardson told reporters here that such an action would carry “grave consequences” for Iraq.

Military analysts believe it is unlikely that Iraqi antiaircraft missiles could bring down the U-2. But even an attempt could expose the missile sites to a counterattack by American aircraft based in Saudi Arabia or on the aircraft carrier Nimitz.

Regardless of the increasingly tough talk, U.S. officials said privately that the United States is deferring to the United Nations in the crisis and has made no decisions about its response. Washington would prefer to avoid military action if an alternative package of tough punishments could be agreed on.

“No one’s trigger-happy,” one official said.