Top Inspectors Make A Last-Ditch Effort

The chief U.N. arms inspectors sat down for urgent talks with Iraqi officials Sunday, bearing a long list of questions about Iraq's weapons programs and a demand for better cooperation from Saddam Hussein's government to avoid war.

Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei were in Iraq for what ElBaradei said was a last-ditch effort to persuade Iraq to "give us what we need" before the pair report to the Security Council Jan. 27 on Iraq's claim that it has no banned chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

"We do not think that war is inevitable," Blix told reporters in Baghdad. "We think that the inspection process that we are conducting is the peaceful alternative. It requires comprehensive inspections and it requires a very active Iraqi cooperation."

"It's in Iraq's benefit to submit all the evidence it has, so that we can submit positive reports to the Security Council," ElBaradei, head of the U.N. nuclear agency, said.

"We are not here to humiliate or to insult," Blix said beforehand. "We are here to inspect in the best, correct manner."

Blix and ElBaradei were met at Saddam International Airport by key presidential adviser Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, who led the Iraqi side in talks that began at the Foreign Ministry in the afternoon.

Each delegation had 15 members and the two sides faced each other across a conference table. Blix and ElBaradei were scheduled to meet with Iraqi officials again for two hours on Monday morning before leaving.

"We need to show progress because the international community is getting very much impatient," ElBaradei said. "We need to bring closure to the Iraqi file on weapons of mass destruction."

Earlier Sunday, before leaving Cyprus, Blix told CBS News Anchor Dan Rather that Baghdad presented a new impediment to U.N. arms teams trying to do their job.

Blix told Rather that the Iraqis insisted that their helicopters go along with U.N. choppers taking the U.N. inspectors to a site in Iraq's nothern no-fly zone.

That, Blix explained to Rather, could be dangerous for the U.N personnel, since Iraqi craft operating in no-fly zones could be shot at.

As a result, Blix said, the inspection was cancelled.

He called that "something new to us and unacceptable."

Blix said. "It's a bit of a cat and mouse play, again. If they are really sincere, if they want to create confidence, then they should give us the maximum freedom to go around the country wherever we want in the no fly zones or elsewhere, and I do not see any good justification for that demand."

Blix agreed with Rather's suggestion that the new Iraqi move isn't exactly a welcome sign for Blix, who is due in Baghdad Sunday along with the U.N.'s top nuclear arms inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei.

When asked by Rather, "Would it be accurate for tomorrow's headlines to read something along the lines of: UN inspectors tell Iraq 'you are not doing enough, you are not doing nearly enough'. Would that be one accurate headline," Blix agreed.

In the same session, ElBaradei confirmed to Rather that U.N. inspectors this week found papers in the private home of an Iraqi physicist on uranium enrichment of uranium, which could result in a material that could be used in a nucleaer weapon.

The physicist, Faleh Hassan, said the documents were from his private research projects and students' theses and he accused the inspectors of "Mafia-like" tactics.

However, ElBaradei told Rather that since the Iraqis had not disclosed information contained in the documents, "it obviously doesn't show the transparency we've been preaching."