Global Policy Forum

By Michael R. Gordon

Harm El Sheik, Egypt — Seeking to avert an American military attack on Iraq, President Hosni Mubarak said today that he would press Iraq's president to readmit United Nations weapons inspectors and had received indications that Baghdad would agree. "We'll try hard with Saddam Hussein to accept the U.N. inspectors to go there," Mr. Mubarak said at a news conference here with Vice President Dick Cheney, "and we are going to meet with some of his special envoys and tell them that this is a must. My knowledge is that he's going to accept the inspectors." Mr. Mubarak's remarks reflected anxiety among Arab leaders that the Bush administration was determined to confront Iraq. As a moderate Arab country and a major recipient of American aid, Egypt is caught between the Bush policy toward Baghdad and Arab public opinion, which strongly opposes an American effort to topple President Hussein.

The possibility that weapons inspectors will return to Iraq offers a way out for Egypt, Jordan and other moderate Arab governments worried that an American military strike against Iraq could intensify resentment of the United States and, indirectly, of the Arab rulers who are close to Washington.

But even if the inspectors are allowed back into Iraq, that may not stave off confrontation between Washington and Baghdad for long. Iraqi diplomats have indicated privately that they are unlikely to accept unrestricted inspections. Mr. Cheney has said that if inspections are to be resumed, they should be unrestricted and conducted anywhere in Iraq at any time.

The prospect that the United Nations and Iraq may wrangle for months over access for inspectors is an unwelcome one for American officials, who have been trying to build support for a military campaign. The issue of United Nations inspections is just one issue that Mr. Cheney has had to confront during a mission that was designed to mobilize support for tough action in Iraq but has been overshadowed by the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since Mr. Cheney arrived in the Arab world on Tuesday, he has discovered that Washington cannot begin to mobilize support for the campaign against Mr. Hussein without a very visible American effort to promote Middle East peace. So in Egypt today, as in his Tuesday visit to Jordan, Mr. Cheney has been involved in discussions on the Saudi peace plan and whatever proposal may emerge from the coming Arab summit conference in Lebanon. In contrast to recent complaints that Yasir Arafat was not doing enough to constrain Palestinian violence, Mr. Cheney said today that Israel must also show restraint following its largest assault in years on the Palestinians. Senior American officials also indicated that they were surprised by the timing and scale of the Israeli offensive, which has severely complicated Mr. Cheney's mission.

Neither Mr. Cheney nor his top aides want to make a direct connection between making progress in the Middle East and attracting Arab support for the administration's Iraq policy. Their concern is that if a Middle East peace settlement becomes a condition for a military effort to depose Mr. Hussein, there may no campaign against Iraq at all. So the official formulation is that the two problems, though not formally connected, need to be addressed in parallel. "From the standpoint of the U.S. both are important problems and both need to be addressed," said an American official, referring to the Middle East peace effort and Iraq.

The administration's new involvement in the Middle East has already had one result: a proposal by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to phase out American participation in the multinational observer force in the Sinai has been shelved for now, American officials said. Senior officials in Washington decided last week that such a move would send a signal that the United States was disengaging from the region at a critical period. Mr. Cheney visited the Arkansas National Guard troops that serve in the force here and praised them for carrying out an important American commitment. In predicting that Iraq's stance on inspections was about to soften, Mr. Mubarak did not assume that the issue would necessarily be resolved. "We will try this direction as far as we can," Mr. Mubarak said.

Efforts to negotiate a diplomatic solution over Iraq's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction began when Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League and a former Egyptian foreign minister, visited Baghdad. Last week, the Iraqi foreign minister held talks at the United Nations, where the Iraqis said they were concerned that inspections might be used as a cover for espionage, a charge that suggested that any eventual inspections would be limited. Further talks are expected in early April. Senior Iraqi officials plan to go to Cairo and other Arab capitals in coming days, touting a willingness to accept inspections to counter the American argument that action is needed to curb Mr. Hussein's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

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