Iraqis Won’t Yield on Access

NEW YORK — Iraq on Saturday swiftly rejected a U.S.-British proposal that would impose stringent rules and a tight deadline for U.N. weapons inspections, saying it would not accept new terms for inspectors and would fight fiercely if attacked.

Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz said the United States would suffer losses “that have not been sustained in decades” if it tried to oust President Saddam Hussein.

Baghdad’s defiance came amid urgent diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and Britain to rally support for a tough new Security Council resolution redrawing the United Nations’ rules for weapons inspections.

The proposed resolution demands that Hussein grant inspectors access to previously restricted sites, and provides for armed security to back them up. It would give the Iraqi government seven days from the resolution’s passage to agree to the terms, require full disclosure of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction within 30 days--and authorize a military attack if Baghdad did not comply.

Iraq announced Sept. 16 that inspectors could return “without conditions” under existing U.N. resolutions and agreements, which exempted eight “presidential sites”--including about 12 square miles of land and more than 1,000 buildings around Hussein’s palaces. Saturday in Baghdad, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said his government would not accept new rules.

“Our position on the inspectors has been decided, and any additional procedure is meant to hurt Iraq and is unacceptable,” he said.

The Bush administration responded that the terms of the inspectors’ work are up to the Security Council to decide.

“Iraq does not have a say in this matter,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said at President Bush’s ranch near Crawford, Texas. “Even if they did, it again shows that they want to string things out, change their tune and build up their arms.”

Under the draft resolution, if Iraq stuck to its position, the rejection would trigger the use of “all necessary means”--a diplomatic euphemism for a military attack. That scenario could harden objections in Paris, Moscow and Beijing to the use of force before inspectors have a chance to search for weapons in Iraq.

On Friday and Saturday, U.S. Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman and British envoy Peter Ricketts met with French and Russian officials to try to overcome resistance to the proposed resolution. The British director of international security, William Ehrman, traveled to Beijing with the same mission. The U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia are the five veto-holding members of the Security Council, and their unity is key to sending a strong signal to Baghdad that this time, the U.N. means business.

But even after diplomatic consultations, France and Russia remained unconvinced. Russia has maintained that a new resolution is not needed for the inspectors’ return but that if there is to be new action, it should follow an idea floated by France of a two-stage approach: The first resolution would redefine the conditions for the inspectors and, if the Iraqis blocked them, the Security Council would have to pass a second resolution to authorize the use of force.

After the meetings in Moscow, Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov told Russian television that inspectors should return quickly to “give a clear answer to the question of whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.”

Chinese officials have also said they favor the two-step approach, and Premier Zhu Rongji, in Paris for economic talks, said Friday that “there would be incalculable consequences” if the United States launched a military attack on Iraq without Security Council approval.

U.S. and British officials said Saturday that they were still optimistic about winning the other three members’ support.

“Everyone agreed that there is a challenge to the United Nations,” U.S. emissary Grossman said after the meetings in Moscow. “I think all members of the Security Council want to see if we can solve it.”

It is still unclear whether France, Russia and China will be able to force concessions on the draft or will jointly back an alternative proposal. The U.S. and Britain plan to formally introduce their draft in the Security Council this week.

Iraq, for its part, was doing lobbying of its own Saturday, as Foreign Minister Naji Sabri went to Tehran to seek Iran’s support against U.S. military action. “Arab and Muslim governments have rejected the option of an attack against Iraq, and the peoples of the region will stand together against an eventual attack,” Sabri said.

Iran has called on its western neighbor, with which it fought a 1980-88 war that killed a million people on both sides, to open its doors to weapons inspectors. But Tehran also fears that an attack on Iraq could destabilize the region. After meeting Sabri at the airport, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters, “It is absolutely imperative we make serious efforts to prevent a new war in the region, because the region cannot support a new war.”

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is also expected to visit Tehran in the coming weeks.

Baghdad’s defiant stance may affect Monday’s talks in Vienna involving the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, international nuclear officials and Iraqi officials. The talks were scheduled for this month immediately after Iraq accepted the return of inspectors, and until a new resolution overwrites the agreements that set up the inspection program, the negotiators will discuss logistics under the old terms.

Still, if the 15-member Security Council agrees on anything, it is that the old inspections program needs to be strengthened and deadlines added. Although Blix’s aide, Ewen Buchanan, said Friday before the team left for Vienna that Blix would be amenable to discussing such matters as basic housing, communications and transportation arrangements under the existing mandate, everyone at the table will be aware that the rules could suddenly change.

The first team of U.N. inspectors is set to arrive Oct. 15 in Baghdad, with a total of 280 team members to be on the ground within a few months.

The teams will have to reequip themselves before they can begin visits to suspected sites that have been unmonitored since the inspectors left Iraq four years ago ahead of a U.S.-British bombing strike.

Because Iraq has previously possessed and used biological and chemical weapons and they are easiest to develop and conceal, Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa--described in a British dossier released last week--have sparked concerns that a clandestine nuclear program also is underway.

The arrest in Turkey on Saturday of two Turkish men with more than 33 pounds of weapons-grade uranium--though not linked to Iraq--added to those fears. The smugglers had hidden the uranium in a lead container under a taxi seat and were arrested after attempting to sell it to undercover police officers. The Turkish state-run Anatolian news agency quoted police officials as saying that they believed it came from an Eastern European country and were investigating whether the uranium was destined for a neighboring state.

The White House had no comment Saturday evening.

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Times staff writer Maura Reynolds in Crawford contributed to this report.