An Iraqi turnaround?

Byline: The Register-Guard

After four years of denying entry to United Nations weapons inspectors, Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq has issued an invitation for a team of such inspectors to come to Baghdad for consultation. The leopard may not have changed its spots, but any signs of accommodation on the central problem posed by Iraq - its suspected possession of weapons of mass destruction - is encouraging.

Whatever the reason for the turnaround - heading off a U.S. invasion, hoping to lift economic and other international sanctions, trying to end Iraq's isolation, etc. - the invitation is welcome. If nothing else, it will trigger useful talks about allowing outside arms experts to determine whether Iraq has resumed arms production and development.

At the end of the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq agreed to end programs in biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and to stop the development of long-range missile systems to deliver them. For the next several years, routine inspections served to reduce, if not eliminate, the risk of Iraq launching some sort of attack against U.N. member nations, especially the United States. In 1998, the weapons inspectors, who worked under the auspices of the United Nations Special Commission, or Unscom, were pulled out because Iraq refused to cooperate with them and because of pending air strikes by the United States and its allies to punish Hussein for blocking the inspections.

In 2000, in an effort to meet some of the Iraqi objections - one of which was Hussein's notion that Unscom was little more than an American spy operation - the U.N. Security Council created a new inspection team, known by the cumbersome name of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or Unmovic, that is fully under the jurisdiction of the United Nations.

One issue that must be worked out in the talks in Baghdad is whether Iraq will in fact allow a full program of weapons inspections, or whether it simply wants to agree to some form of long-term monitoring instead. The U.N.'s negotiators should not agree to that unless and until a new round of on-site inspections determines that Iraq isn't producing weapons of mass destruction. Agreeing to a monitoring system over an inspection system would suggest that Iraq has met the requirements uncovered by the earlier inspections, when in fact it may have not.

The timing of Baghdad's letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is, to say the least, interesting. It comes when possible air attacks or even an invasion of Iraq are being seriously considered in the highest reaches of the U.S. government. If such a pre-emptive strike, which would most assuredly cost U.S. as well as Iraqi lives, can be averted through a renewal of inspections, the Middle East would have at least one less powder keg to deal with. In any event, the world should applaud Iraq's invitation for talks with the U.N. inspection team. For it can always be said that talking is preferable to killing.