Stewart Stogel
Friday, Sept. 20, 2002

(United Nations)- The executive director of UNMOVIC (U.N. Monitoring, Observation, Verification and Inspection Commission) Dr. Hans Blix admitted Thursday evening that he indeed was intending to launch several ad-hoc "surprise" inspections soon after U.N. officials return to Iraq.

Speaking to reporters after a private briefing to the Security Council, Blix confided "we will have some select ones [inspections] but I am not going to tell you or the Iraqis which ones they are going to be."

The Blix admission comes after a day of intensive meetings between officials of the Bush administration and several congressional committees as well as with Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov in Washington.

It also came after an earlier speech by Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri to the U.N. General Assembly. Sabri relayed "excerpts" of a letter Saddam Hussein sent to the assembly president.

The foreign minister reiterated Iraq's readiness to accept the return of U.N. arms inspectors but also spoke about the need to "respect Iraq's sovereignty and dignity."

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer called the Sabri address "a failure."

President George W. Bush, meeting Secretary of State Colin Powell in the Oval Office, insisted that the time of negotiations with Iraq "has ended." He added, "There will be no negotiations."

Blix informed the Security Council that he expected to finalize all the "technical" details about a return to Baghdad when he meets an Iraqi delegation in Vienna, Austria on September 30.

"We will expect everything to be finished at that time. If Blix comes back without an Iraqi agreement, it will be very serious," confided one European ambassador on the council.

The ambassador called the closed door meeting with Blix "cordial and smooth, devoid of political rhetoric."

He also admitted the Russian and French delegates "have become resigned" to U.S. insistence that Saddam Hussein be put on formal notice about the need to resume arms inspections. It was not clear however, if the French or Russians would approve a "use of force" resolution in advance of the resumption of arms inspections.

The inspections first began in the spring of 1991, but were suspended by the U.N. in December 1998 in advance of Operation Desert Fox.

It was only in March 2002 that Iraq indicated "a willingness" to discuss the possibility of resuming arms inspections. Several rounds of talks between U.N. chief Kofi Annan and senior Iraqi officials ensued, but an "unconditional" acceptance to U.N. demands only came on Monday.

The State Department claimed the "unconditional" acceptance was in fact "highly conditional" and rejected the offer.

The Blix announcement about surprise inspections came on the heels of reports that U.S. intelligence has received evidence that Iraq has revived its biological weapons program and German revelations that Baghdad has been attempting to purchase equipment related to the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

Last month, Blix revealed that UNMOVIC was in discussions with several commercial satellite companies to expand space surveillance of Iraq.

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