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To: Gottfried who wrote (27952)	8/18/1998 6:30:00 PM
From: Captain James T. Kirk	Respond to of 95453

Tuesday August 18 6:11 PM EDT UN Monitors Plotting Course on Iraq NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - With the failure of a U.N. envoy's mission to Baghdad and little guidance from the Security Council, U.N. weapons inspectors were on their own Tuesday in deciding whether to push ahead with contentious inspections or back off. The U.N. Special Commission, which is overseeing the inspections, and the International Atomic Energy Agency had sought clear instructions from the council on whether to test Baghdad's Aug. 5 decision to freeze cooperation with weapons searches. The council's response - letters to chief inspector Richard Butler and his counterpart at the atomic agency - backed their mandates to carry out inspections but gave no clear direction on how to deal with Iraq's defiance. Inspectors say Iraq's refusal to cooperate has made their jobs impossible. While the letters fell short of what inspectors hoped for, council members said their message of support was sufficient for inspectors to go about their work. ''We are now engaged in a process in which inspections will take place and we'll see what happens,'' said the council president, Danilo Turk of Slovenia. The inspectors must certify that Baghdad has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction before U.N. trade sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait can be lifted. When asked why the council hadn't threatened Iraq with ultimatums, such as threats of military action, for its continued defiance, Turk said the time wasn't right for such a strong message. ''I don't think that anyone in the council has suggested that we have reached a point at which consideration of severest consequences would be necessary,'' he said. Indeed, China's deputy representative, Shen Guofang, said Beijing opposed any such threats. ''We hope that there is no military action in this regard because we hope this issue will be resolved calmly and peacefully,'' he told reporters. Earlier Tuesday, the U.N. chief's envoy, Prakash Shah, announced that he had failed to persuade Iraq to resume cooperation and was returning Wednesday to New York, where he was expected to brief the council. In its letters, which were sent Tuesday, the council expressed its support for Shah's efforts as well as the continued involvement of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who defused the last crisis over inspections. Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, had said the U.N. chief foresaw no personal role in the dispute but said Tuesday that he was sure Annan ''would be working closely with council members to bring as much pressure on Iraq as possible to return to cooperation with inspectors.'' ''I think basically he's been pleased that the approach being taken by the council is low-key rather than confrontational with military threats,'' Eckhard said. ''On the other hand, he can't exclude that the council would once again consider the military option.'' The stalemate between Baghdad and inspectors is but the latest confrontation between the two sides since the monitors began searching dozens of Baghdad sites in 1991. Iraq insists it has abandoned its weapons program, that the searches violate its sovereignty and that the U.S. animosity toward Iraq is the reason the sanctions remain in place. Butler has said Iraq has made great progress in dismantling its chemical and nuclear weapons, but that there is sizable evidence that it retains a thriving biological arms program.