Talks between Baghdad and the UN on weapons end without agreement

High level talks in Vienna between Baghdad and the UN ended yesterday without an agreement on the return to Iraq of inspectors tasked with searching for prohibited weapons of mass destruction. As the discussions ended, the UN Secretary Kofi Annan, stated, "They haven't said 'yes' yet." But he observed that the Iraqi team, headed by the Foreign Minister, Mr Naji Sabri, would return home with information on the conduct of inspections.

This would seem to satisfy one of Iraq's 19 demands, presented on Thursday by Mr Sabri.

Iraq also seeks a roadmap for lifting sanctions and UN investigation into US threats to oust the Iraqi President, Mr Saddam Hussein. Iraq wants to achieve progress on these issues before permitting the resumption of inspections, suspended in 1998. While Mr Annan previously forwarded Iraq's demands to the Security Council, it has refused to deal with them because of deep divisions amongst the five permanent members. Mr Sabri said he expected the dialogue to continue until Iraq and the UN "build up a mechanism to accommodate the concerns of both parties." Talks are expected to resume in September.

Mr Sabri also dismissed as "rubbish" a press leak of elements of a US contingency plan for a three-pronged military assault on Iraq and said the report had no bearing on the Vienna talks.

According to the article, published simultaneously in the New York Times and the Financial Times of London, a military assault would involve tens of thousands of marines and soldiers probably invading from Kuwait while hundreds of aircraft would strike airfields, roads and communications networks. Special forces or undercover operatives would attack depots and laboratories suspected of manufacturing non-conventional weapons and missile delivery systems.

The US President, Mr George Bush, was briefed last month on the "broad outline" of operations by General Tommy Franks, the head of US Central Command based in Tampa Florida. Mr. Bush has repeatedly stated his intention of bringing about "regime change" in Iraq. More detail has been set out in the highly classified document, entitled "CentCom Courses of Action". The source of the leak was quoted as saying, "Right now, we're at the stage of conceptual thinking and brainstorming.We're pretty far along." None of the countries cited as potential staging areas have yet been contacted.

Nevertheless the US has been shifting men and assets from the Prince Sultan Airbase, the US command centre for the Afghan campaign, to the Udeid base in Qatar because Riyadh refuses to permit an attack to be launched on Iraq from Saudi territory. The Arab summit, held in March in Beirut, declared that an attack on "any Arab country would be considered an attack on all". Turkey and Europe have also expressed opposition to military action. This being the case, the report stated, "Nothing in the document or in interviews with senior military officials suggests an attack on Iraq is imminent." While some analysts suggested that the leak was meant to torpedo the Vienna talks, an authoritative informant in contact with the Iraqi team told The Irish Times, "this is disinformation. In any normal country, leaking such a document would be considered treason.

This is just a scare tactic. There have been a spate of such articles recently."