UN Fails to Win Iraqi Support for Inspectors' Return

Talks between the United Nations and Iraq over allowing weapons inspectors to return to Bagdhad ended on Friday without an agreement. But both sides agreed to revisit the issue in negotiations planned in Europe in the coming months.

"They haven't said yes yet," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at the close of the Vienna meeting.

Only a day earlier, Annan seemed more optimistic. He said he hoped for "conclusive decisions" on the return of the arms experts, who left on the eve of a December 1998 bombing raid to punish Iraq for blocking their work.

The UN wants to see its arms inspectors return to Iraq after an absence of more than three years. The international body is demanding the return of the inspectors as a prerequisite for the lifting of sanctions that have been in place for 12 years.

U.S. President George W. Bush has repeatedly warned Hussein he would face serious consequences if he continued to prevent inspectors from examining whether Iraq is continuing to clandestinely develop its prohibited nuclear, biological, chemical and balistic missile programmes.

Wasting arsenal

On paper Iraq still keeps what seems like an impressive military arsenal. But this arsenal is slowly wasting away.

Iraq has not been able to modernise its armed forces, spare parts are scarce, co-ordination is insufficient and pilots have been greatly restricted due to U.S.-imposed no-fly zones.

In addition, the morale of Iraqi forces is said to be weak. Large parts of the Iraqi forces simply ran away and surrendered during Operation Desert Storm.

Hidden resources

But what is still unclear is whether Iraq has significant biological and chemical weapons to deploy against an invading force.

Should the weapons inspectors be allowed back to Baghdad, finding out what resources Hussein is hiding would be their main objective.

"Has Iraq attempted to rebuild its atomic arsenal? This is the big question", Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Melissa Flemming said.

"Without the possiblity to go everywhere, to look at each building, to interview each person, to look at each document, - without these possibilities we will never be sure whether something is being made in secret". "We definitely need access", Flemming said.

Third time running

Fears that Iraq may pass on its knowledge of chemical or biological warfare to terrorist groups have led to repeated talk of a "regime change" within U.S. ranks.

Asked whether U.S. threats against Hussein had been the catalyst for the talks, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that was not what had "propelled" him here.

However, this is the third meeting between the UN and Iraq to discuss a possible return of arms inspectors to Baghdad.

So far, no breakthrough has been achieved on this matter.

But UN diplomats did hail one agreement on Thursday as "significant". Iraq has agreed to return 90 per cent of the archives and numerous art works looted from Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation in 1990.