Light at end of the Iraqi tunnel?

The prospect of an imminent end to the endless Iraqi-UN crisis emerged after chief weapons inspector Richard Butler delivered an upbeat assessment on Monday of the progress made in his latest round of talks with Iraqi officials in Baghdad on the dismantling of the weapons.

The reported progress during last week's talks could enable the inspectors to complete their work so that Iraq can push for an end to UN economic sanctions imposed after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

After three days of talks with Iraq's deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and other senior officials, Butler said Iraq had agreed to a two-month work programme with the arms experts, aimed at speeding up final verification of Iraqi claims to have scrapped their weapons of mass destruction.

"The light at the end of the tunnel today is more visible than at any other time," Butler, head of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq's disarmament (UNSCOM), told reporters at the end of his talks with Iraqi officials.

Standing side by side with Aziz at a rare press conference, Butler explained that UNSCOM can finish its job of dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in two months, on condition Iraq cooperates fully with its arms inspectors.

"The aim of this activity is to [reach] an end as soon as possible, but legitimately [and] validly," Butler added, while Aziz nodded in confirmation. Aziz later said that the two sides had had "a very fruitful meeting" and that their "exchange of views and discussions were businesslike and professional."

Certainly, these are fine words which may indicate a new spirit of cooperation, but since they have been said time and again over the course of the last seven years, it is difficult to succumb to the optimism they so obviously seek to inspire.

Butler, who arrived in Baghdad last Thursday as the head of an 18-member delegation, presented to the Iraqis what he called a "road map;" a very clear -- and definitive -- list of the tasks that need to be accomplished in order to produce a final accounting of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

According to Butler's aides, the three-page document calls on Baghdad to provide additional data to account for missile warheads, and key aspects of its chemical and biological weapons programmes, files which UNSCOM says are still rather thin. Compliance with this request is now the main condition for lifting sanctions.

Before Butler traveled to Baghdad, he presented his "road map" inspection plan to the UN Security Council at a briefing session behind closed doors. Later, diplomats said he told the 15-member Council that "fairly large gaps" remain in UNSCOM's coverage of several areas, especially in the biological field, raising the prospect of renewed tensions between the inspectors and the Baghdad government.

Iraq immediately rejected the new disarmament plan and its Foreign Minister Mohamed Said Al-Sahaf accused Butler of "insisting on the same non-starter approach of casting doubts and building understanding on assumptions and suspicions, not on facts and figures."

The Iraqi official media went even further, calling Butler a "liar" and a "mad dog", and urging the UN Security Council to replace him.

This scathing criticism continued even during Butler's visit to Baghdad, raising doubts over Iraq's willingness to cooperate with the chief weapons inspector and his team.

"The Special Commission chairman has erected a wall to block any lifting of the embargo, slashing Iraqi hopes of seeing an end to these unjust sanctions," said Babel, the Iraqi daily newspaper which is run by Saddam's son, Uday.

"The road map should show the way out, but the "Mad Dog" [Butler] has instead put up this wall," it declared Sunday.

However, by the end of Butler's visit, Iraq and the United Nations seemed to have stepped back from a new crisis. Yet the question remained: has Iraq gained anything from Butler's positive assessment of his mission?

What Iraq wants is for the Security Council to lift the crippling economic sanctions quickly. To achieve that, UNSCOM must certify that Iraq has destroyed all its illegal weapons. The question is, therefore, can the UN inspectors complete this mission, which has already been dragging on for more than seven years, in only two months, if they follow the proposed timetable?

One thing seems certain: Iraq is losing its patience, and Iraqi officials have increasingly been making threats to aggravate further existing tensions if the sanctions are not lifted soon.

Meanwhile, the UN weapons inspectors are coming under mounting pressure from Russia, France and China, the three permanent members of the Security Council who are pushing to end the inspections (against the wishes of the other two members, the United States and Britain) so that the Council can move ahead with the final step of lifting the sanctions.

If -- and this is a very big if -- Iraq and the UN inspectors are able to cooperate over the next two months and Iraq makes every possible effort to satisfy the weapons inspectors, then Butler will have to produce a positive report to the Security Council when it reviews its sanctions in October. But if that next report shows that Iraq has not complied with UNSCOM's demands, it would most certainly set the scene for another crisis with Iraq.

So, there may indeed be a little light at the end of the tunnel, as Butler claimed after his meeting in Baghdad. But whatever light there may be is still too slight and too fragile for anyone to predict with confidence whether the people of Iraq can indeed begin to look forward to an early end to economic sanctions.