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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Monday Iraq, seeking to avert a threatened U.S. invasion, would submit a new report on VX nerve gas and anthrax stocks in a week's time, as Baghdad scrapped more of its banned missiles.
A key U.S. and British charge against Iraq has been that it has failed to account for all the chemical and biological agents that were slated for destruction after the 1991 Gulf War.
Britain pooh-poohed the latest Iraqi concessions. "Given the history of deception, cheating and lies it is understandable that we should be approaching what we are seeing at the moment with a degree of skepticism," a government spokesman said.
U.S. preparations for war continued apace with U.S. defense officials saying Washington had extended the targets being attacked by air patrols in "no-fly" zones over Iraq to include weapons that could hinder a ground invasion.
Iraq says it has destroyed all its chemical and biological arms, but chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, due to report on Iraqi compliance to the U.N. Security Council at week's end, says Iraq has provided no details to back up that claim.
Iraq and U.N. arms experts discussed on Sunday Baghdad's proposal for "quantitative verification" of VX and anthrax. Iraq says it has carried out recent excavations that proved it has destroyed "important quantities" of the banned substances.
"Iraq will be providing a report on the VX and anthrax in a week's time," Hiro Ueki, spokesman for U.N. weapons inspectors in Baghdad, told Reuters. Ueki also said six more Iraqi al-Samoud 2 missiles and two empty warheads were destroyed on Monday at Taji base, some 25 miles north of Baghdad.
It was the first time warheads related to the missile were destroyed. Ueki said earlier that the destruction of casting chambers for the missiles would be completed by Tuesday.
Baghdad began on Saturday to destroy some 120 missiles, meeting a key U.N. deadline. Ten of the missiles, whose range Blix says exceeds the 150-km (93-mile) limit allowed by U.N. resolutions, were scrapped on Saturday and Sunday.
Iraq has turned the destruction of its banned missiles into a test of world opinion on its cooperation with the United Nations, warning it could stop if the United States ignored the U.N. and continued to press for war.
But the missile destruction and the offer of a new report on VX and anthrax led oil traders to believe the war timetable could be pushed back. U.S. light crude fell 75 cents to $35.85 a barrel and Brent crude dropped 58 cents to $32.21.
SHIFT IN U.S. STRATEGY
Washington is still seeking U.N. backing for military action despite fresh opposition from France and Russia, two of the five veto-wielding members of the Security Council.
French President Jacques Chirac, speaking during a historic visit to Algiers, reaffirmed on Monday that Paris opposed any U.N. resolution that would allow the use of force against Iraq, and that inspections were "still the way to go."
"We are opposed to any resolution which would authorize, in one way or another, the use of force," he told reporters.
In what was widely seen as a signal of U.S. intentions, senior U.S. defense officials said there had been an aggressive shift in strategy in the no-fly zones over Iraq, set up after the Gulf War and now covering more than half the country.
New targets being attacked almost daily by U.S. and British patrols include surface-to-surface missile systems and multiple-launch rockets that could be used against ground troops in an invasion or against neighboring countries.
In a setback to Washington's plans, there was little hope on Monday that Turkey's parliament might quickly reconsider its narrow vote at the weekend to bar U.S. forces from using Turkish soil as a launchpad to attack Iraq.
"I can't see (Turkish leader Tayyip) Erdogan resubmitting a plan anytime in the next week or so, and even then the result could be the same," one Western diplomat said.
The Pentagon says it can draw up alternative plans to attack Iraq without using Turkey as a northern front, but analysts say such a campaign would be slower, more costly and far riskier.
The United States and Britain are rapidly building up a force of nearly 200,000 troops in Kuwait, and it is an open secret the Pentagon would like to launch any war before Iraq's fierce summer heat from April makes combat conditions tougher.
The United States and Britain are likely to seek U.N. backing for war in the form of a resolution by the Security Council in the days after Blix presents his next report. They have already presented a draft resolution.
Gulf Arab ministers stopped short on Monday of formally backing a call on President Saddam Hussein to go into exile in order to avert war, leaving the initiative dead in the water.
Although the idea, floated by the United Arab Emirates, won unofficial endorsement at the weekend by most members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, their foreign ministers agreed it needed wider discussion among Arab states.
Saddam himself has dismissed the suggestion.
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