Global Policy Forum

By Michael Gordon

After poring over confidential reports and satellite photos, Hans Blix and his United Nations team are preparing to conduct inspections to determine whether Iraq had abandoned its efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

More than 50 inspectors would be based in Baghdad, according to the plan. No sites would be off limits. Iraqi officials would be required to hand over documents about the history of their secret weapons programs.

Mr. Blix's plan may be the only way, short of war, for Saddam Hussein and President Bush to resolve their differences over charges that Iraq retains and is still pursuing weapons of mass destruction. So far, however, Iraq and the United States are on a collision course, raising the question of whether Mr. Blix's inspectors will ever have a chance to do their job.

Iraq's new Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, is scheduled to meet with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, this month. But many diplomats believe that the surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence is likely to make Iraq less willing to cooperate with the United Nations. The theory is that Mr. Hussein's government will conclude that Washington will find it all but impossible to win Arab backing for an offensive against Iraq, thus removing the pressure on Iraq to agree to wide-ranging inspections.

The Bush administration, for its part, has signaled its determination to keep the tensions in the Middle East from distracting it from its goal of confronting Iraq. The administration's strategy seems to be to demand unrestricted inspections, with the expectation that Baghdad will frustrate the request and give Washington a rationale for a military campaign to oust Mr. Hussein.

"I made up my mind that Saddam Hussein needs to go," Mr. Bush said in a television interview this week. "I am confident that we can lead a coalition to pressure Saddam Hussein and to deal with Saddam Hussein."

There are situations in which inspections might yet be an option. For Iraq, accepting them might be the only way to mobilize international support against an American military strike if the Middle East conflict should be defused. For Washington, it might be the only way to contain Iraq's programs to develop nuclear, biological and chemical arms, as well as the missiles to deliver them, if politics preclude Arab support for an American strike.

Given the enmity between Washington and Baghdad, however, a final military reckoning seems the more likely option. At his United Nations headquarters, Mr. Blix stoically asserted that inspections remained a possibility. "This is our working assumption and we are preparing ourselves for it as best we can," he said.

A former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a diplomat from Sweden, Mr. Blix was a compromise choice to serve as chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. The organization replaced an earlier monitoring body, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, which was disbanded after Iraq thwarted the work of inspectors and the Clinton administration responded in 1998 by ordering air strikes.

Washington initially favored Rolf Ekeus, the original head of the earlier monitoring organization. But his appointment was blocked by Russia and France, which have been eager to see economic sanctions lifted against Iraq and were hopeful that Mr. Blix would be less strict than Mr. Ekeus might have been.

Some American specialists say, however, that Mr. Blix seems determined to take a rigorous approach. Mr. Blix asserts that cosmetic inspections are worse than none at all and that his mandate provides for immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access. Robert J. Einhorn, a top State Department official during the Clinton administration, said, "The Russians and the French underestimated how tough he would be."

The initial goal set by the United Nations Security Council for Mr. Blix's inspectors is not as sweeping as that established for the earlier group of United Nations monitors. The object is to not prove that Iraq is completely free of weapons of mass destruction but to demonstrate that substantial progress is being made. The reward is more modest too: sanctions would be suspended, not lifted.

"It is a less ambitions agenda but at the same time perhaps one that might be more easily attained," Mr. Blix said in an interview. "It does not require that every last piece of program be eradicated but simply that progress has been made."

Under Mr. Blix's plan, 50 to 100 inspectors at a time would be in Iraq. The pool of potential inspectors would be 230, however, so that a new group would be periodically assigned. Already, potential inspectors have undergone training, including coaching in the sensitivity they would be expected to show toward Islamic culture.

Access to the hundreds of suspected weapons sites is just part of what would be required of Iraq. "They will have to help by coming up with the evidence," Mr. Blix said. "They have the archives, the bills of lading and budget documents."

The first stage of inspections, which would take several months, would involve identifying the main tasks Iraq would need to perform to address suspicions about its weapons programs. Given full cooperation, Mr. Blix said that within a year he would likely be able to report significant headway in clearing up discrepancies.

"If we have the kind of cooperation the Security Council has requested, we can get a high level of assurance," he said. "We would not get certainty. Nor do I think you can do it with occupation."

Some former inspectors, however, said they doubt that Iraq would ever provide enough access to demonstrate that it has ended all its weapons program, which is what the inspectors said really counts.

"I am doubtful that Iraq would ever agree to the extraordinary access that would be required, particularly for monitoring biological weapons areas," said Charles A. Duelfer, the deputy chairman of Unscom, the first United Nation organization formed to monitor Iraq.

Iraq's stance will become clearer after Mr., Sabri, its foreign minister, comes to the United Nations in mid-April. At a United Nations meeting last month, the Iraqi delegation professed interest in a resolution but did not agree to inspections. Mr. Sabri also gave Mr. Annan a list of 19 questions that suggested Iraq might not cooperate unless it received assurances from Washington that it would never attack.

"How will the relationship between Iraq and the council be normalized under the present declared U.S. policy, which aims at invading Iraq and overthrowing its national government by force?" was one of the questions.

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