Chief of U.N. Weapons Team to Leave Post

UNITED NATIONS —  Richard Butler, the controversial head of the U.N. weapons inspection program in Iraq, said Thursday that he will leave his post when his contract ends in five months.

“My contract finishes at the end of June . . . and I don’t think that I’ll be seeking an extension,” he told reporters.

Butler’s decision is sure to bring joy to Baghdad, which sought to label him as a spy. Two Security Council members--China and Russia--have sharply condemned his blunt style of leadership.

Underscoring the degree of Russia’s antipathy, at one point Ambassador Sergei V. Lavrov even refused to allow a 260-page report that Butler had delivered on disarmament issues in Iraq to become an official Security Council document.

Butler, however, had long received strong backing from the United States, which praised the work of the U.N. Special Commission, or UNSCOM, charged with ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

“The U.S. view is that both UNSCOM and Richard Butler have been heroes, having worked and fulfilled their mandates under very difficult circumstances under constant attack both in New York and in the face of lack of cooperation from the Iraqis,” Peter Burleigh, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, said Thursday.

In characteristic style, Butler lectured reporters after saying he would leave: “Get off the case,” he said, “because you are swallowing something that is not right--that somehow this is about personalities.”

Butler’s report, which he termed “vastly more serious than when my contract ends,” stressed that major questions remain about Iraq’s arsenal of biological and chemical weapons and its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons components.

Butler’s announcement Thursday defused a controversy within the 15-member Security Council about his tenure. It also allowed Secretary-General Kofi Annan to “get off the hook,” a U.N. official said.

Annan, who has criticized Butler’s confrontational style while giving public support, has been caught between the Australian diplomat’s detractors and allies.

People familiar with Butler’s thinking said he hopes to help shape U.N. policy toward Iraq before he leaves.

“We are glad he is going to be here several months to help the council as it reengages on the Iraq issue,” Burleigh said.