Saddam Rolls Out Welcome Wagon

With a possible war in the offing, Iraq and the U.S. maneuvered for advantage on the world stage. Saddam Hussein invited top U.N. weapons inspectors to return to Iraq. Separately, President Bush lined up support among European allies.

Iraq invited chief U.N. inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei to return to Baghdad for more talks before their next report to the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 14, a senior Iraqi official said Thursday.

Presidential adviser Amer al-Saadi suggested the two visit Iraq again before Feb. 10 for talks aimed at "boosting cooperation and transparency (and) jointly discussing methods of disarmament verification."

The two are scheduled to file their next update report with the Security Council four days later.

Blix and ElBaradei conducted two days of talks with Iraqi officials here on Jan. 19-20. The two reported to the Security Council on Monday that Iraq had provided inspectors with access to sites they wanted to inspect but complained of a lack of full cooperation in disclosing information about banned weapons programs.

The invitation was reported in a statement by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. In New York, Blix's spokesman Ewen Buchanan said the invitation had not yet been received "and therefore (we) will not yet discuss it."

The Iraqi maneuver came on a day that saw the White House continue its diplomatic push for military action against Iraq.

As he met with foreign leaders, President Bush considered setting a deadline for Iraq to comply with a United Nations resolution demanding he cooperate with inspectors and destroy weapons of mass destruction.

"The president is using this window now to engage in very busy and active diplomacy," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "This will take place in a period of weeks, not months."

Fleischer struck back at Nelson Mandela, who suggested racism on the president's part when he asked if the United States was trying to circumvent the U.N. "because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man."

Fleischer pointed to a letter by eight European leaders reiterating their support of Mr. Bush. "He understands there are going to be people who are more comfortable doing nothing about a growing menace that could turn into a holocaust," he said.

In the letter published Thursday in several newspapers, the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark paid homage to the "bravery and generosity of America" in ensuring peace in Europe.

In addition, Albania's Prime Minister Fatos Nano wrote Mr. Bush pledging the country's "total and unconditional" support in the war on terrorism.

However, several other countries require convincing. At a meeting Wednesday, 11 of the 15 Security Council members supported giving more time to weapons inspectors to pursue Iraq's peaceful disarmament.

After a meeting with Secretary of State Powell Thursday, Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham says the United Nations has a responsibility to make Iraq disarm but also warned against unilateral action, saying, "If one state acts by itself it risks consequences."

Next Wednesday, Powell is to present evidence to the council suggesting Iraq possesses or has tried to obtain weapons of mass destruction, is deceiving inspectors and has links to terrorist groups.

The administration is working to find a way to release such information without compromising U.S. intelligence sources. Fleischer asserted that "there's already a Mt. Everest of information" implicating Saddam even without new evidence.

At a hearing on Capitol Hill, CBS News Correspondent Bob Fuss reports several Democratic senators pressed administration officials on the contention that Iraq may give chemical or biological weapons to terrorists like al Qaeda.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he thinks that could happen, but offered no evidence that it had. He said there is evidence some al Qaeda terrorists are in Iraq, but offered no link between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Armitage told senators the president has instructed him and others to engage in "several weeks of intense negotiations" to find a peaceful solution to the situation in Iraq.

Mr. Bush was meeting with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and Prince Saud, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, a day before his critical Camp David meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Among the issues Mr. Bush will discuss with allies is whether imposing a final deadline on Iraq would help spur the international community to increase pressure on Saddam. The administration also is considering a new U.N. resolution. One senior official said it could declare Iraq in violation of its obligations to disarm and authorize the use of force after a certain deadline.

Or, the official said, a deadline could be set without a resolution being proposed by the United States in the Security Council.

Powell, in an interview with ZDF Television of Germany, raised anew the possibility of the United States acting against Iraq without Council support. He said that after consultations next week the administration will decide whether the next step should be a U.N. resolution or "some other action that we might feel obliged to take."

Another issue on the table during Thursday's talks could be the option of convincing Saddam to go into exile, which the Saudis have tried to do. U.S. officials have signaled support for that move, but Fleischer Thursday would not say whether the U.S. would guarantee not to pursue Saddam for alleged war crimes.

In Iraq, the county's ruling party newspaper on Thursday dismissed Mr. Bush's State of the Union speech as "Hollywood farce," and pointed out he offered no new evidence to support an array of accusations about hidden Iraqi weapons. Iraq released a seven-page reply to Monday's report by U.N. inspectors that the country had failed to cooperate fully with the monitoring teams.

Two more Iraqi specialists on Thursday refused requests to submit to private interviews, the U.N. inspection agency reported. A total of 15 individuals have now declined to be questioned by U.N. inspectors without the presence of an Iraqi government official or other witness.

Also Thursday, diplomats said Jordan has agreed to base U.S. troops in the kingdom and to allow the United States to use Jordanian airspace if Washington launches a war against Iraq.