Iraq minister complains of war 'pretexts'

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In a point-by-point protest, the Iraqi government complained to the United Nations Sunday that the small print behind the weapons inspections beginning this week will give Washington a pretext to attack.

The new U.N. resolution on the inspections could turn "inaccurate statements" among "thousands of pages" of required Iraqi reports into a supposed justification for military action, Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"There is premeditation to target Iraq, whatever the pretext," Sabri said.

His lengthy letter, a detailed commentary on the Security Council resolution, was not expected to affect the inspections, which resume Wednesday after a four-year suspension. Iraq had accepted the resolution in a Nov. 13 letter from Sabri to Annan.

Preparations moved steadily ahead on Baghdad's outskirts Sunday, where technicians at the U.N. inspection center worked to establish a "hot line" with liaisons in the Iraqi government.

The first working group of 18 inspectors arrives today on a flight from a U.N. rear base in Cyprus. Their numbers are expected to swell by year-end to between 80 and 100 at a time in Iraq.

In seven years' work after the 1991 Gulf War, U.N. experts destroyed large amounts of chemical and biological weapons and longer-range missiles forbidden to Iraq by U.N. resolutions, and dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons program before it could build a bomb. The inspections were suspended amid disputes over U.N. access to Iraqi sites and Iraqi complaints the United States inserted spies in the inspection teams.

Accounting by Dec. 8

A new focus on Iraq by the Bush administration led to adoption of Resolution 1441 and the dispatch of inspectors back to Iraq with greater powers of unrestricted access to suspected weapons sites. Washington alleges Iraq retains some prohibited weapons and may be producing others.

The resolution, adopted unanimously Nov. 7, demands the Iraqis give up any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or face "serious consequences."

It requires Iraq to submit an accounting by Dec. 8 of its weapons programs, as well as of chemical, biological and nuclear programs it claims are peaceful. Any "false statements or omissions" in that declaration could contribute to a finding it had committed a "material breach" of the resolution -- a finding that might lead to military action.

Sabri's letter, dated Saturday and released Sunday, complained that a key passage on providing documentation is unjust, "because it considers the giving of inaccurate statements -- taking into consideration that there are thousands of pages to be presented in those statements -- is a material breach."