Global Policy Forum

Somini Sengupta

Diplomats on the Security Council, even including the United States' European allies, are working quietly but persistently to head off American military action against Iraq by trying to persuade Saddam Hussein's government to reopen the country to arms inspectors.

Privately, the diplomats say they are constantly and keenly aware of the threat of American military action, which one diplomat described as hanging like a sword of Damocles over their discussions. A failure to persuade the Iraqis to allow the inspectors back in, they say, would only strengthen the hand of those within the Bush administration who favor war, led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The United States is alone among the 15 Security Council members in leaning toward a military route. Many believe that if Iraq once again allows inspections it may create a substantial diplomatic obstacle between Bush administration hawks and an Iraqi invasion. At the same time, they say, it may also exploit divisions within the Bush administration and bolster those, like Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who favor diplomacy.

"The move is to help Colin Powell over Rumsfeld," said one European diplomat on the council. "Maybe we are wrong. But the idea is that if you deploy hundreds of inspectors throughout Iraq and they do a good job, and they are not prevented from doing a good job by the Iraqi authorities — so there are a number of ifs — then it will be very difficult for the Pentagon to justify that military action is justified and the choice will be in hands of President Bush."

The inspectors are charged with the task of making sure that Iraq is stripped of weapons of mass destruction, which the Bush administration fears Baghdad could pass to terrorist groups. The Bush administration appears willing to invade Iraq to guarantee that cannot happen.

The inspectors left in December 1998, on the eve of American and British airstrikes, after years of stonewalling and standoffs by Iraqi officials. Their return now, diplomats hope, would make an American assault unnecessary. It is in any case a precondition for lifting the economic sanctions that Iraq has lived under since it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The Council members recently agreed to modify those sanctions, in a step that the United States hoped would increase pressure on Mr. Hussein to live up to his obligations by making it harder for him to claim that ordinary Iraqis are being unduly punished by the sanctions.

The optimism of some Security Council members notwithstanding, it is impossible to predict whether Iraq is ready to let the monitors return. For the moment, however, the goal, is "unity of the Council," as diplomats say. "The more the Security Council remains united on forcing Iraq to fulfill its obligations completely in accordance with Security Council resolutions," said another European official, "the more the hands of the doves are strengthened in Washington."

For their part, senior American officials say they will in the meantime continue to operate on two tracks. On one track, they will use international pressure, diplomacy and the sanctions, to tighten the noose on Baghdad. On the other, they will keep alive the military option to topple Mr. Hussein."Not everyone agrees with us on the concept of a regime change," one American official here conceded. "But we're working on that."

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