- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Russia
on Friday urged U.N. weapons inspectors returning to Baghdad to focus solely
on the disarmament job in hand and Iraqi newspapers said they had to be
objective and free from any U.S. influence.
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- Moscow, an ally of Baghdad from the Soviet days with
important oil interests in the country, wants to ensure the U.N. experts
cannot be used by Washington to justify a military invasion to oust President
Saddam Hussein, a stated U.S. aim.
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- Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said inspectors
had to compare the current arsenal with what existed at the end of 1998
when the head of the team Richard Butler unilaterally quit Iraq, complaining
Baghdad was not cooperating.
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- "That was how he cleared the way for strikes against
that country," Fedotov told Itar-Tass news agency.
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- This time, Fedotov said, any hitch in the U.N. inspectors'
work had to be brought before the U.N. Security Council.
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- An advance party of U.N. technicians is scheduled to
arrive in Baghdad on Monday to prepare for inspections, which are not expected
to begin for another week or two.
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- The group will be accompanied by chief U.N. arms inspector
Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director-general
Mohamed ElBaradei.
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- Moscow's U.N. ambassador Sergei Lavrov said he hoped
the inspectors had drawn lessons from the time experts were last in Iraq,
when they pursued "tasks which had nothing to do with the need to
eliminate weapons of mass destruction."
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- "Crude and arrogant methods were used which ignored
the sovereignty and dignity of Iraq and its people," he told Russian
television late on Thursday.
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- Iraq accepted on Wednesday a new U.N. resolution giving
Baghdad one last chance to disarm and paving the way for weapons inspectors
to return after a four-year absence.
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- But the United States vowed again on Thursday that military
force would be used to oust Saddam if he did not comply.
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- HONEST, OBJECTIVE
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- Iraq's official al-Thawra newspaper, mouthpiece of Saddam's
ruling Baath Party, said Baghdad's acceptance of the tough new resolution
will put U.N. credibility to the test and said inspectors had to be honest
and objective.
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- "The most important thing is that inspection teams
should keep themselves away from American and Zionist influence which will
take different forms such as bribes, blackmail, threats and the recruitment
of spies under the label of experts," al-Thawra said.
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- The Iraqi press has repeated Baghdad's denial it has
any weapons of mass destruction, and said Iraqi cooperation should be rewarded
with a lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of
Kuwait.
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- "America will also try to confuse and complicate
the task of the (U.N.) inspectors in order to create a crisis with Iraq
that will allow Washington to carry out its threats of war," it said.
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- But ElBaradei has said he will not report to the Security
Council any minor, unintentional omission in a weapons disclosure statement
Iraq is obliged to produce, a stand putting him at odds with President
Bush's "zero tolerance" policy.
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- ElBaradei said in Washington: "If there is minor
omission and this is clearly not intentional we are not running to the
Security Council to say that it's a material breach."
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- Some analysts believe that absolute denial that Iraq
has any banned weapons, if maintained, could be taken by Washington as
reason for waging war. The resolution adopted unanimously last week calls
on Iraq to give the United Nations "full, accurate and complete"
details of weapons programs by December 8.
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- Australian Bill Jolley will serve as chief weapons inspector
on the first inspections team in Iraq, the Australian Defense Ministry
said on Friday. Russia had bitterly criticized Butler, another Australian,
when he quit Iraq in 1998, for not consulting the Security Council first.
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- ANY DELAY SERIOUS
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- Blix said in an interview published on Friday even a
half-hour delay in allowing inspectors access to sensitive sites in Iraq
could be serious, but stopped short of saying it would violate the U.N.
resolution, which could trigger war.
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- "You cannot hide a bulky weapon or a big machine
in half an hour, but you can hide documents or test tubes," Blix told
French newspaper Le Monde.
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- The Bush administration, which has an official policy
of "regime change" in Iraq, has set a more stringent standard
for judging Iraqi compliance with the resolution.
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- Asked on Wednesday how he would define a "material
breach" of the U.N. resolution, a term that could lead to military
action to disarm Iraq, Bush said: "Zero tolerance...We will not tolerate
any deception, denial or deceit, period."
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- In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac discussed Iraq
on Friday with Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov and their French counterparts, Chirac's spokeswoman Catherine
Colonna said.
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- Chirac "said essentially that Iraq must not make
any mistakes this time around. Its full and complete cooperation with the
international community is vital," she told reporters.
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