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US Calls Iraq Inspection Offer
'Tactic That Will Fail'

By Steve Holland
9-16-2


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday dismissed Iraq's unconditional offer for the return of U.N. weapons inspectors, calling it a tactic that would fail and insisting a U.N. resolution requiring Iraq to disarm was still needed.
 
White House officials heaped scorn on Iraq's offer, made under world pressure and a threat of U.S. military action, to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into the country, and urged the Security Council not to be swayed against taking tough action on Iraq.
 
"This is a tactical step by Iraq in hopes of avoiding strong U.N. Security Council action. As such it is a tactic that will fail. It is time for the Security Council to act," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
 
Iraq agreed on Monday to allow the unconditional return of U.N. arms inspectors. They were pulled out of Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of U.S.-British bombing raids and had not been permitted to return.
 
The Iraqi move came as the United States seeks support in the United Nations for a resolution requiring Iraq to disarm. Washington accuses Iraq of developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
 
The offer risked undermining the momentum the United States has built up against Saddam in the wake of President Bush's speech last Thursday to the United Nations at which he said the U.N. risked becoming irrelevant if it did not respond forcefully to Iraqi intransigence.
 
"This is not a matter of inspections," McClellan said. "It is about disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi regime's compliance with 11 other Security Council resolutions."
 
McClellan said the U.N. Security Council "needs to decide how to enforce its own resolutions, which the Iraqi regime has defied for more than a decade."
 
"This will require a new, effective U.N. Security Council resolution that will actually deal with the threat Saddam Hussein poses to the Iraqi people, to the region, and to the world," he said.
 
A senior State Department official, with Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations, said the new resolution "should make clear that there are consequences" if Iraq fails to comply.
 
"The first step in any kind of dialogue is for the council to make clear through its resolution what inspections without conditions means, what compliance means and what Iraq needs to do," the official said.
 
'EXPECTING THIS KIND OF THING'
 
U.S. officials said they were not surprised by the Iraqi move. "We were expecting this kind of thing," said one White House official.
 
"When we see a new (U.N.) resolution, we'll see if they're serious," the official said of the Iraqis.
 
U.S. officials said they believed other members of the Security Council would remain tough against Iraq.
 
"In the days since the president's speech we have seen extraordinary support for this approach by the president, and we have every expectation that that support will continue to grow," said a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
 
Bush last Thursday challenged the United Nations to enforce U.N. resolutions requiring Iraq to disarm or else the United States would be forced to act on its own. Then Bush said on Friday he was "highly doubtful" that Saddam would ever comply given his past history.
 
Bush, in addition to Iraq's disarmament, demanded Iraq end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, cease persecution of its civilian population, release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown, and end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program.
 
White House communications director Dan Bartlett called the Iraqi offer an attempt at giving "false hope to the international community that he (Saddam) means business this time. Unfortunately, his more than decade of experience shows you can put very little into his words or deeds."
 
"We've made it very clear that we are not in the business of negotiating with Saddam Hussein," Bartlett said.
 
In a speech on Monday in Iowa, Bush called the threat posed by Iraq "one of the clearest threats we face."
 
"We, the world, cannot let the world's worst leaders harbor and develop the world's worst weapons. This tyrant must be dealt with, for the sake of our children and our children's children," he said.





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