The United States has dismissed the latest Iraqi offer on weapons inspections as "word games" and repeated its call for international pressure on Iraq to disarm.
Iraq appeared on Saturday to relent on some UN demands on weapons inspections after earlier ignoring a list of ground rules United Nations officials had sent to Baghdad.
But US diplomats said a new letter from an Iraqi presidential adviser delivered to weapons inspectors, the second this week, still fell short of total acceptance of conditions for future inspections set down by UN disarmament officials.
"Iraq continues to want to play word games and not comply," State Department spokeswoman Ms Jo-Anne Prokopowicz said. "It will continue to make contradictory promises and then choose the version of most tactical benefit at any given moment.
"Iraq responds to pressure, but will revert to non-compliance the moment it thinks it can. That is why the UN Security Council must tell Iraq what to do and what will happen if it doesn't," she said.
The Security Council opens debate on Wednesday on a resolution that would threaten Iraq if it failed to provide full access to weapons inspectors. The United States has drafted a measure that would give inspectors more rights and authorise the use of force if Iraq did not comply.
In the latest Iraqi letter, President Saddam Hussein's adviser, General Amir al-Saadi, assured chief UN weapons inspector Mr Hans Blix and Mr Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Baghdad wanted to remove all obstacles to the inspectors' return after a nearly four-year break.