BAGHDAD : Checking on Saddam

A top U.N. official is scheduled to arrive in Baghdad on Friday for consultations on President Saddam Hussein’s once-powerful biological weapons program. The official, Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus, is chairman of the U.N. Special Commission, assigned by the Security Council to oversee the destruction of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction after the Persian Gulf War.

Ekeus is satisfied that Iraq has ended its nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and long-range missile programs, but the biological weapons program remains a question mark. If the Iraqis can prove they are in compliance, France and Russia have said they will ask the Security Council to lift the embargo on the sale of Iraqi oil, a move opposed by the United States.