-Caveat Lector- All the while the U.S. military has intensified the preparatory bombings of Iraq as a response gesture of good will... Heh..
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=586&e=1&cid=586&u=/nm/20020916/wl_nm/iraq_un_dc Iraq Agrees to Return of U.N. Arms Inspectors Mon Sep 16, 7:59 PM ET By Jonathan Wright UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iraq agreed on Monday to allow the unconditional return of U.N. arms inspectors amid an intense lobbying campaign by Washington which was backed up by the threat of U.S.-led military action. "I can confirm to you that I have received a letter from the Iraqi authorities conveying their decision to allow the return of the inspectors without conditions," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ( news - web sites) told reporters after receiving a letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri. "We reached satisfactory results and there is good news," Sabri told reporters after handing the letter over. "The secretary-general ... will announce the good news to you." U.N. weapons inspectors, responsible for checking Iraq for nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic weapons, 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 details of the letter were not immediately available and it was not clear whether the contents would be acceptable to the United States. Arab and European leaders had detected signs of Iraqi flexibility on inspections after Saudi Arabia made clear at the weekend that it would back U.N.-sanctioned action to force Baghdad to disarm. A Bush administration official said earlier on Monday that Iraq was considering writing to Annan "making some sort of a concession toward readmitting weapons inspectors." U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric de la Riviere said Sabri handed over the letter at a meeting also attended by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. Annan will pass the letter to Bulgaria, the current chairman of the U.N. Security Council, he added. The U.S. campaign for maximum pressure on Iraq gathered strength over the weekend when Saudi Arabia said it would back action against Iraq if the United Nations ( news - web sites) approved it. In another sign of mounting pressure on Saddam, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that U.S. and British warplanes enforcing no-fly zones in north and south Iraq were taking a more active approach, methodically attacking air defenses. Iraq had moved missiles and other military equipment close to civilian sites in recent days, mirroring similar movements in the past that signaled Baghdad was feeling under threat, a U.S. official said. In Iraq, Saddam met his top aides twice on Monday to discuss "the current political situation," the official Iraqi News Agency reported. The United States and the United Nations insist on an unconditional Iraqi agreement to unrestricted access for the inspectors. The United States also has a policy of "regime change" in Iraq and has refused to say that compliance with U.N. resolutions would be enough to avert an attack. POLITICAL DYNAMIC CHANGES Speculation about readmission of the arms inspectors had been rife. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said: "During the last days and mainly the last hours, there have been lots of rumors concerning the fact the Iraqis may accept the return of inspectors." Earlier Secretary of State Colin Powell ( news - web sites) had said: "The political dynamic has changed and there's a great deal of pressure now being placed on Iraq to come into compliance with the U.N. mandates of the last 12 years." Powell, following up on a tough U.N. speech by President Bush ( news - web sites) last week, said he and other members of the 15-nation Security Council were working on a new resolution on Iraq to be completed "in the not too distant future." The United States is lobbying for a strong U.N. resolution demanding that Iraq disarm, preferably with a threat of severe consequences if Baghdad does not comply. France wants a two-stage process -- with the first resolution demanding a return of arms inspectors and a second dealing with the potential consequences of refusal. A U.S. official said the United States expected elements of a resolution to be drafted by Wednesday and wanted the measure circulated among Security Council members by Friday. "People are putting pen to paper," one diplomat said, adding that talks among all 15 members would begin next week. MILITARY ACTION Rumsfeld said he did not know how quickly Baghdad could repair command and control buildings and military airfields now being attacked in the event that Bush ordered an invasion. The number of air strikes has increased in recent weeks, although military officials have insisted they were in response to Iraqi attempts to shoot down planes and not linked with any possible wider military initiative. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal indicated in a weekend interview that Saudi Arabia, the main launchpad in the 1991 Gulf War ( news - web sites), would again allow the use of bases on its soil to attack Iraq should such action win full U.N. backing. Saudi Arabia, Washington's main ally in the oil-rich Gulf region, had previously agreed with other Arab allies to oppose a military attack on Iraq. Prince Saud, asked by CNN if Riyadh would allow the use of its bases for a campaign against Iraq, said: "If the United Nations takes a decision by the Security Council to implement a policy of the U.N., every country that has signed the charter of the U.N. has to fulfill it." A senior Saudi official on Monday reiterated his country's opposition to any unilateral U.S. attack, which had been indicated by a bellicose tone this summer from Washington, "Saudi Arabia rejects any unilateral attack that has no international cover," said the official, contacted by Reuters in Riyadh from Dubai. "The shift is in the American position, not the Saudi position," he added, referring to U.S. attempts to lobby the U.N. Security Council against Iraq rather than act alone. The reaction of the Saudi government and its Arab neighbors to the news that Iraq would readmit inspectors was not immediately clear. Some 5,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed at the kingdom's Prince Sultan Air Base, which was the command center for the U.S.-led alliance that evicted Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, although many U.S. military command facilities have since been moved to Qatar. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/16/international/16WIRE-NATI.html?pagewanted= print&position=top http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=586&e=1&cid=586&u=/nm/20020 916/wl_nm/iraq_un_dc <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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