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The head of the UN nuclear agency will tell the Security Council on January 27 that Saddam Hussein has done a "quite satisfactory" job of cooperating with inspectors in some areas but that they need more time to complete their search.
The White House dismissed the favorable assessment, but a senior US official said the Bush administration was considering agreeing to let the inspections go on longer as a means of reassuring anxious European allies following a rift that broke out this week with France and Germany.
There were also moves in Europe to calm the tensions with Washington.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said although there was "growing support" in Europe for Germany's position, his country's toughened stance against war "won't destroy the German-American relationship."
"We need to cool off on statements and rationalize," said the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.
The United States has threatened Iraq with war, but France, Germany and Russia all urge that the inspectors be given more time to do their job of assessing whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or programs to build them.
In his remarks to the Security Council on Monday, UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei will say his inspectors have gotten generally good cooperation from the Iraqis, spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told The Associated Press.
"Their report card will be a `B' ?? quite satisfactory," he said.
However, White House spokesman Sean McCormack said: "It's pass-fail. Iraq either is in compliance or not. And so far Iraq has failed to pass the test."
Later, seeking to qualify his comments, Gwozdecky said the "B" is only for responding to inspectors' questions and requests for information.
"We're not in the position of issuing grades ?? that's for the Security Council to do," he said. "We just report the facts, and our goal is the disarmament of Iraq. They're not coming forward to help us. They're not bringing forward original documentation."
On January 27, ElBaradei will argue that the inspectors, who returned to Iraq in November after a four-year break, need at least several more months, Gwozdecky said. ElBaradei will also say that the Iraqis "need to help themselves" by pointing the experts in the right direction.
ElBaradei, director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, will brief the council on nuclear issues. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix will brief the council on Iraq's biological, chemical and missile programs.
As the pair finalized their reports to the council, a senior official in Washington told AP that the Bush administration is considering extending the inspections in an effort to ward off mounting criticism at home and abroad that it is rushing toward war.
In Washington, two key lawmakers continued to urge President Bush to resolve the situation diplomatically. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, warned Friday against a "rush to war in the absence of a strong multilateral coalition."
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said "we have yet to see any evidence that Saddam still has weapons of mass destruction."
A decision by the Bush administration on whether to support extended inspections ?? and put off any military action ?? will be based on whether the inspections are productive and whether Blix and ElBaradei offer new evidence to the council on Monday, said the senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Like ElBaradei, Blix is expected to praise the access Iraq has accorded inspectors. But he has increasingly criticized Baghdad over the past week for a number of failings, including blocking inspectors from using an American-made U-2 reconnaissance plane.
Blix will spend the weekend working on his presentation, which will build on an assessment he presented to the council on January 9. In the earlier report, Blix said inspectors hadn't found any "smoking gun" in Iraq.
Since then, his teams have uncovered 16 warheads which he said Iraq didn't adequately account for in its 12,000-page arms declaration. Inspectors also uncovered some 3,000 pages of documents at the home of an Iraqi scientist, some of which Blix said should have been mentioned in the weapons declaration as well.
Blix said tests were still being conducted on some of the warheads. None of the results, however, will be detailed in Blix's report to the council Monday.
"This is far too technical a matter to bring up unless we find something sensational in a sample but I have not had such a report yet," Blix said.
The inspectors' reports could play a pivotal role in Washington's justification for swift military action.
In other developments on January 24:
_ Germany started deploying the first of 2,600 soldiers at US military installations to step up security ahead of possible war ?? a move meant to offset Berlin's opposition to any military action. About 300 soldiers were in the first wave being sent out to US bases and other complexes, strung across southern and western Germany, the Defense Ministry said.
_ NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said in London that the United Nations will lose all credibility if it does not act to disarm Saddam.
Although Baghdad steadfastly denies it has weapons of mass destruction and has recently taken a harsher tone toward the inspectors' work, "access and cooperation are good," said Gwozdecky, the head IAEA spokesman.
"We've been getting where and when we want to get, and we've been generally successful in getting what we need," he said.
Gwozdecky said ElBaradei will make a case for additional pressure on Baghdad to encourage Iraqi scientists to consent to private interviews with the UN inspectors. So far, the scientists have refused.
Iraq said the United Nations had asked to interview three scientists on Saturday. At least six others have refused to be interviewed without an Iraqi official present.
At the White House, spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush considers the failure of Iraq to make its scientists fully available to UN inspectors "unacceptable."
Fleischer said Saddam's conduct will make "the end of the line come even closer. His refusal is further evidence that Iraq has something to hide."
ElBaradei's main message to the council will be that the inspectors need more time, Gwozdecky said.
"He'll say we need several more months to come to conclusions," he said. "He'll say our team is not yet at capacity, and that some tools are not yet on the ground," such as high-tech equipment capable of detecting airborne gamma radiation.
(China Daily January 25, 2003)
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