(CBS) Secretary of State Colin Powell is assuring the Arab world the Bush administration's demand for regime change in Iraq aims at disarmament, not ousting President Saddam Hussein.

"If he cooperates, then the basis of changed-regime policy has shifted because his regime has, in fact, changed its policy to one of cooperation," Powell said in an interview with a London-based Arab newspaper released Monday by the State Department.

But even as Powell's comments became public, members of the Iraqi opposition met again at a U.S.-sponsored conference in London, hoping to hammer out differences over how to run Iraq if Saddam is overthrown.

In Iraq, weapons inspectors visited a site 15 miles outside Baghdad where scientists once came close to developing a nuclear weapon. They also toured for a third time a complex of government factories and made a stop at an electronics and machinery factory.

U.N. nuclear experts, meanwhile, began testing the first batch of samples gathered by inspectors in Iraq.

Also Monday, American and British jets fired on Iraqi installations after the aircraft were targeted while patrolling the no-fly zone.

The inspectors are working in Iraq under a U.N. resolution passed last month that threatens serious consequences if Iraq fails to prove it has surrendered all its banned weapons. The United States has threatened to attack Iraq — alone if it deems it necessary — and says it has proof Saddam is hiding weapons of mass destruction. Iraq says it has no such weapons.

Powell said the policy of regime change in Baghdad was inherited from the Clinton administration by the Bush administration.
"We came into office in 2001 and kept that policy because Saddam Hussein had not changed," Powell told the newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi by telephone last Thursday.

"We now believe it is appropriate for Saddam Hussein to be forced to change, either by the threat of war, and therefore that compels him to cooperate," Powell said.

"So if he cooperates, then that is different than if he does not cooperate," Powell said.

"It remains our policy to change the regime until such time as the regime changes itself," he said.

Powell declined, meanwhile, to offer a judgment on the weapons declaration filed by Iraq with international weapons inspectors. And he said Mr. Bush had not decided whether to use force against Iraq.

At the White House, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said U.S. officials were still studying the document.

Critics of U.S. threats of war have questioned what might follow in Saddam's wake, given the fractious nature of the opposition.

Hoping to assuage those fears, some 300 Iraqi exiles — drawn from disparate regional, religious and political backgrounds — began talks in London on Saturday aimed at forming a transitional government to replace Saddam.

Aside from agreeing on the need for an interim administration and having the Iraqi president tried for war crimes, the Iraqi exiles have found consensus something difficult to reach.

Talks were originally scheduled to finish Sunday, but dragged on into Monday. And Monday opposition officials said they would need a further 24 hours to settle "unresolved issues."

The key sticking points are over the membership of a policy-making committee for Iraq's future and the desire of an opposition party that wants Iraq run as a monarchy to have a referendum held on what form any new Baghdad regime should take.

None of the Iraqi opposition factions — torn by rivalries and desires to rule Iraq — want to be left off the policy committee, as many believe it would serve as a transitional government if Saddam is toppled.

Iraqi women and tribal chieftains are complaining that they are already being shut out of the committee, which is expected to have room for 40 representatives.

Actor Sean Penn left Baghdad Sunday after expressing opposition to the war.

"Simply put, if there is a war or continued sanctions against Iraq, the blood of Americans and Iraqis alike will be on our (American) hands," Penn said at the end of a three-day visit to Iraq which was organized by the Institute for Public Accuracy, a research organization based in San Francisco, Calif.