World

Iraq Stops U.N. Inspectors

August 6, 1998 / 2:56 AM EDT / AP

Iraq stopped a team of U.N. weapons inspectors from carrying out searches for banned weapons in Baghdad on Thursday, an Iraqi government official said.

The move came a day after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein froze cooperation with U.N. inspectors to protest eight years of economic sanctions. It was the most defiant Iraqi gesture since a crisis over searches of presidential compounds was resolved in February.

Government officials did not accompany the U.N. team in its search Thursday, the official told The Associated Press. Without them, U.N. teams are not able to conduct their work.

The team was not allowed to conduct "discussions with Iraqi authorities on arms or visits to sites or searches for past weapons," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The team was supposed to carry out work in Baghdad and had attempted to continue searches despite Saddam's statement Wednesday.

The Iraqi government, however, allowed monitoring of other sites already inspected to continue. About 460 sites in Iraq have been inspected and are being monitored.

A convoy of four U.N. vehicles left the Canal Hotel in the eastern outskirts of Baghdad followed by a similar number of cars of Iraqi officials.

"Ongoing monitoring continues," a U.N. spokeswoman, Janet Sullivan, told the AP.

The move Thursday followed a breakdown in talks between Iraq and the United Nations over the inspections. Chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler left Baghdad on Monday and was to face the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.

A government statement Wednesday said Saddam has decided to "completely suspend cooperation" with the U.N. Special Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It said monitoring activities would be allowed on the condition that U.N. personnel "carry out the monitoring strictly respecting Iraq's sovereignty, security and its people's dignity."

The United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM, has been searching, monitoring and accounting for Iraq's chemical and biological arms, nuclear program and long-range missiles since 1991 in a bid to eliminate these weapons of mass destruction.

The U.N. Security Council imposed the sanctions after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and has said they cannot be lifted until inspectors verify that the weapons have been eliminated.

The sanctions have crippled Iraq's economy by banning the free sale of oil, the country's economic lifeblood.