Global Policy Forum

By Ewen MacAskill

The Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, has personally signalled for the first time through a Labour MP that he is ready to bow to international pressure by allowing UN weapons inspectors back into the country. Letting the inspectors return with freedom to search for weapons of mass destruction would make it extremely awkward for the US to carry out its threatened military action.

Saddam's offer was delivered to the British Labour MP George Galloway on Thursday morning in a face-to-face interview in a bunker at a secret location in or near Baghdad. Writing in today's Guardian, Mr Galloway said that in a sane world this and other diplomatic gestures by Iraq would be seized upon.

The UN, with the support of the US and Britain, has been pressing Iraq for more than three years to make the concession on weapons inspections. The US fears Saddam has been using the absence of the inspectors to develop weapons of mass destruction and is threatening to take military action to depose him.

Mr Galloway said the offer should remove any casus belli. But a Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday: "This changes nothing. It tells us nothing new. Saddam knows what he has to do and that is comply with UN security council resolutions." These resolutions demand that the inspectors have unhindered access to check for weapons of mass destruction.

The Foreign Office privately sees Saddam's promise to Mr Galloway as a diversionary tactic. But the MP challenged the US, the UN and Britain to explore the offer. He told the Guardian: "The Foreign Office is defending an increasingly discredited line. Why not test the sincerity of the offer? There is everything to gain."

The MP has good access to the Iraqi leadership because of his prominence in a campaign against sanctions for most of the past decade. His opponents criticise him for being close to the regime, dubbing him the MP for Baghdad Central.

Saddam's offer is consistent with the trend of Iraqi diplomacy in recent months, which seems to be building towards acceptance of the weapons inspectors' return to avoid invasion. Mr Galloway said: "Saddam said he would accept all the UN resolutions and these resolutions include unfettered access." Asked if Saddam had used the word unfettered, Mr Galloway said: "He did not explicitly say that, but by accepting the resolutions you are accepting these words."

The onus is now on the UN, which has held unsuccessful talks with Iraq this year aimed at securing the return of the inspectors, who left in 1998. No date has been announced for a new round of talks. The offer will divide the international community even more than at present. It also presents a dilemma for Tony Blair: British policy, unlike that of the US, is aimed only at a return of the inspectors, and not a regime change.

The political risks for the prime minister of backing a war are underlined by a new YouGov internet poll in today's Daily Telegraph, in which more than two-thirds of voters believe a war is not justified at present - and 54% fear that Mr Blair is becoming President George Bush's "poodle". Mr Blair is briefly to break off from his holiday in Le Vernet, south-west France, today for informal talks with the French prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, almost certainly covering Iraq.

There would be no incentive for Iraq to let the inspectors back in if the US was going to attack. This is one of the issues Iraq wants to discuss directly with the head of the weapons inspectorate, Hans Blix. Baghdad believes the propaganda war has swung in its favour recently and will hope Saddam's offer will strengthen the hand of the peace camp.

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