Arab foreign ministers demand Arab experts on inspection team

CAIRO, Egypt -- Arab foreign ministers urged Saddam Hussein on Sunday to accept the U.N. Security Council resolution ordering new, tougher weapons inspections and demanded that Arab arms experts be included on the U.N. teams.

The ministers adopted the eight-point statement shortly after the Iraqi leader ordered his nation's parliament to recommend a response to the U.N. resolution, which was adopted Friday and gives Baghdad a seven-day deadline for acceptance. Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said parliament would convene Monday

The United Nations is not obliged to heed the Arab ministers' demand on weapons inspectors, adopted at the end of a two-day meeting of the 22-member Arab League in Cairo.

The United States, meanwhile, warned it will not tolerate any Iraqi failure to cooperate with weapons inspectors. "We do not need to waste the world's time with another game of cat and mouse," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned while making the rounds of Sunday news talk shows in Washington.

Arab foreign ministers, including Sabri, worked into the evening on a final communique.

"In our deliberations, the consensus was to deal with the Security Council resolution, accepting its direction, and this is left for the government of Iraq to decide" by Friday, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said late Sunday after the meeting ended.

The Arab League document demands that Iraq and the United Nations work together and calls on the United States to commit to pledges Syria said it was given that the resolution would not be used to justify military action.

It does not specify how many Arab experts should be on inspection teams or say which countries they should represent.

A spokesman for the U.N. inspection operation said a list of inspectors and their country of origin was not immediately available.

However, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is an Egyptian, and would be on the advance team of inspectors headed to Iraq if Saddam accepts the resolution. ElBaradei's agency is in charge of looking for nuclear arms programs.

Qualified Arabs

Sabri said there are qualified Arab experts who could participate in inspections. "(Arabs) who have been chosen for this mission by the U.N. don't exceed the fingers on one hand, among 245 inspectors," Sabri told Iraqi television. "They are not inspectors, they undertake service jobs. Arab experts and Arab inspectors should have the priority."

The Arab League document also demanded "the continuation of U.N.-Iraq cooperation to solve all standing issues peacefully in preparation for the lifting of sanctions and the end of the (U.N.) embargo as well as the suffering of the Iraqi people."

It put forward a united Arab position of "absolute rejection" of any military action against Iraq, saying it represents a threat to the security of all Arab nations.

In addition, it called on the Security Council to require Israel to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction because they "constitute a serious threat to Arab and international peace and security."

Arab foreign ministers have said they fully expect Iraq to accept the U.N. resolution.

Rice dismissed the prospect of Saddam seeking parliament's advice as "ludicrous."

"Saddam Hussein is an absolute dictator and tyrant, and the idea that somehow he expects the Iraqi parliament to debate this -- they've never debated anything else," Rice said Sunday on the ABC network's "This Week" program.

"I'm surprised he's even bothering to go through this ploy."

Iraq's parliament is stacked with Saddam's allies. Should parliament recommend acceptance to the Revolutionary Command Council, led by Saddam, he would have some cover for retreating from previous objections to any new language in a resolution governing weapons inspections.

In brief remarks to journalists on Sunday, Sabri said only that the Arab position is firm in rejecting any U.S. use of military force. He said Saturday that "no decision has been taken" by Baghdad on cooperating with the resolution.

But if Saddam fails to follow through, U.S. officials have said a Pentagon plan calls for more than 200,000 troops to invade Iraq.

The new resolution gives inspectors unrestricted access to any site and the right to interview Iraqi scientists outside the country or without official Iraqi presence, points that could be disputed by Baghdad. Iraq insists on respect for its sovereignty, an argument it has used in the past to restrict access to Saddam's palaces.