Iraq pledges more cooperation with U.N. inspectors

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix addresses reporters in Baghdad after wrapping up talks with Iraqi officials.

United Nations weapons inspectors wrapped up weekend meetings with high-level Iraqi officials Sunday. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) hope Iraq will be more cooperative with U.N. Resolution 1441, which calls on the Gulf nation to disarm. But U.S. officials say Iraq has offered too little, too late.

U.N. officials want Baghdad to cooperate with three key demands at this time. Inspectors want to interview Iraqi scientists privately in order to question them about Iraq's weapons programs. The U.N. also hopes Iraq will allow American U-2 spy planes to fly surveillance flights over the country. And inspectors have asked Baghdad to come clean on some issues regarding chemical and biological weapons.

Chief weapons inspectors completed a 36-hour meeting in Baghdad Sunday-the third meeting between the U.N. inspectors and high-ranking Iraqi officials in two months. ElBaradei said he was seeing "a beginning of a change of heart on the part of Iraq," which implies that he thinks Baghdad will be more cooperative with inspectors.

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Both ElBaradei and Blix said they needed more time to make real progress in searching the country for illegal weapons. But the White House has a different view of the issue.

U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says Iraq has already been given too many chances. "The Iraqis have had not three months to deal with this problem-they have had 12 years," Rice said. She was referring to the sanctions that the U.N. placed on the country when the 1991 Persian Gulf War ended. Since that time, the U.N. has required Iraq to allow inspectors to search and destroy the country's banned weapons, but Iraq has not always complied with this demand.

Iraq insists it has complied with the latest U.N. resolution on the country. Resolution 1441, which Iraq accepted last November, calls for a full accounting of the country's weapons programs. "We have been truthful...and our track record is clean," said Gen. Amer al-Saadi, Iraq's presidential science adviser.

President Bush says the U.S. is prepared to take action to ensure Iraq disarms, even if the U.N. does not do so. He said that "one thing is certain: For the sake of peace and for the sake of the security of the United States and our friends and allies, we will disarm [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] if he will not disarm himself."

Inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei will issue their latest progress report on Iraq this Friday. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday that the Bush administration was waiting to hear what the inspectors had to say.