Is Saddam Hoping To Save Face?

Iraqi media ignored parliament's recommendation to reject the U.N. resolution on arms inspections, reporting Wednesday only that lawmakers affirmed their trust in President Saddam Hussein to respond as he sees fit.

The gap between what the Iraqis are being told by the tightly controlled news outlets and what parliament said - recommending on Tuesday that Saddam reject the resolution - could mean Saddam believes he has no choice but to accept the resolution, but is looking to do so with minimum loss of face.

Saddam's son, Odai Saddam Hussein, who plays a prominent opinion-making role, said Tuesday the resolution should be accepted only on condition that Arabs be included on the inspection teams.

"We have to agree to the U.N. Security Council resolution with limits on certain points, but not, we say, conditions," he said.

Russia, Iraq's main ally on the U.N. Security Council, urged Baghdad to accept the resolution.

Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said Iraq's "internal debates can probably be explained by the fact that the language of the resolution is certainly quite tough.

"And so the emotions that the resolution may evoke in Iraqi society are in principle understandable. Nonetheless, we hope that the Iraqi leadership will take a pragmatic approach," Fedotov said Wednesday in Moscow.

If Iraq rejects the resolution, or accepts it but fails to cooperate fully with inspectors, the United States and Britain have made clear they will attack the country.

Iraqi legislators were unanimous in their vote to recommend Saddam reject the Security Council resolution demanding unlimited access to search for weapons of mass destruction.

The vote, broadcast live on foreign Arabic satellite television, was seen a message of defiance to the world, but by Wednesday it had still not been broadcast on Iraqi television. Satellite dishes are banned in Iraq.

No newspapers reported the rejection recommendation. The state-run Al-Iraq daily reported the parliamentary session by saying that legislators had decided to "authorize President Saddam Hussein to adopt whatever he deems appropriate regarding U.N. resolution 1441."

Iraq has until Friday to respond to the Security Council.

The official Iraqi News Agency said lawmakers reaffirmed their faith in Saddam's "wise leadership," but made no mention of the rejection vote.

Iraq's leading newspaper, Babil, ran the full text of Odai Saddam Hussein's letter in he said the resolution should be accepted with conditions attached. Odai Saddam Hussein owns Babil.

However, many Iraqis had heard of the parliament's rejection through foreign radio stations, such as the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Arabic service.

On the streets of Baghdad on Wednesday, construction worker Salman Mahmoud said he heard of the rejection on the Arabic service of Monte Carlo radio.

"It does not matter whether we reject or accept the U.N. resolution because the United States will attack Iraq anyway in the end," Mahmoud said.

A retired civil servant, Karim Abdul-Zahra, said he supported the parliament's rejection because the U.N. resolution was phrased in terms "where the slightest mistake or delay can provide legitimacy to a U.S. war on my country."

The U.N. resolution demands that inspectors have access to any suspected weapons site and the right to interview Iraqi scientists outside the country and without Iraqi officials present. Iraq maintains it no longer has any weapons of mass destruction.

President Bush Tuesday insisted time is running out for Iraqi stalling.

"We're through negotiations, there's no more time," he told reporters. "He must disarm. He said he would disarm. He now must disarm."

He also insisted there would be no deals beyond the U.N. resolution.

"There's a zero-tolerance policy now," Mr. Bush said. "The last 11 years have been a period of time when this guy tried to deceive the world, and we're through with it. It's as simple as that."

The purpose of the parliament vote was to give the illusion of democracy at work, that rejecting the resolution reflects the wishes of the Iraqi population as a whole, reports CBS News Correspondent Charles D'Agata in Baghdad. In rejecting the resolution, the parliament gives Saddam some reinforcement if he should choose to take an equally hard-line stance against the new U.N. resolution.

The United States, however, has said it will have no patience with any Iraqi attempts to manipulate U.N. demands.

Spokesman Scott McClellan Tuesday said only Saddam can decide whether Iraq will be disarmed "peacefully or by force."

At the same time, the spokesman refused to confirm the report that Iraq is buying a nerve gas antidote, but he said, "No one needs proof that Saddam has chemical and biological weapons and he has shown a willingness to use them."

Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish diplomat who headed U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq between 1991 and 1997, expects Saddam to accept.

"He will say 'OK, I have no choice, I forced to do it, under protest,'" Ekeus told CBS News Correspondent Dan Raviv. "He will say, "All right, I have to give in because of this tremendous military. I am forced to accept because the greatest military power in the world is up against me.'"

In the clearest such statement yet from France, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Tuesday on France-Inter radio that force would be used against Saddam if he does not cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. France had opposed making the recourse to force automatic.

Arab League foreign ministers who met over the weekend in Egypt and urged Saddam to accept the U.N. Security Council resolution also demanded that Arab arms experts be included on the U.N. teams.

The office of U.N. chief inspector Hans Blix, who is in charge of chemical and biological inspections, said it has trained inspectors from 49 countries, including six Jordanians, one Moroccan and five Turks.

"We don't get too many applications from Arabic countries and we would welcome more applications from people who have the right expertise," one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief nuclear inspector, said the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency in the past had "many inspectors from many Arab countries," but he stressed that nationality isn't the only important issue.

"The important thing is that teams are completely impartial and independent and under the authority of the inspecting organization — and that's what both Hans Blix and I are committed to," he said.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will meet with President Bush at the White House Wednesday, as Friday's deadline draws closer. Annan says he expects Saddam to accept the demands on weapons inspections.