Chief UN inspectors report progress in Iraq talks

The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog reported progress yesterday after flying to Baghdad to demand that Iraq actively volunteer information on its weapons programmes to avert the threat of war.

Mohamed ElBaradei flew in from Cyprus with chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix in what Blix had said was a last-ditch bid to get Iraq's full cooperation before they report back to the UN Security Council on January 27.

The ensuing debate may be crucial to deciding whether the United States launches a war on Iraq that it has threatened in order to enforce its demand that Baghdad come clean on alleged nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington that the United States would know "in a matter of weeks" whether Iraq was cooperating fully with the inspectors.

Blix and ElBaradei spent two-and-a-half hours at the Foreign Ministry with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's scientific adviser Amir al-Saadi and General Hussam Mohammad Amin, head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate.

"We are having good, constructive meetings," ElBaradei told reporters. "We are still going to meet tomorrow. We are making progress," he added, without elaborating. The two men are due to leave Baghdad today.

Bush administration officials yesterday supported the idea of a exile "haven" for senior Iraqi leaders, and they said a "last phase" in the Iraqi crisis was near that would determine its willingness to disarm and avoid war.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he would be "delighted" if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein departed to exile or was stripped of the protection of Iraqis who surround him under a proposal to grant amnesty to top Iraqi officials if they help dislodge him.

Demands that the inspection process be given a chance picked up steam on Saturday when a wave of anti-war protests rolled around the world from Tokyo to London and the United States - where tens of thousands attended celebrity-led rallies.

Blix said on arrival on Baghdad that it was in Iraq's power to avert war.

"We don't think war is inevitable. We think the inspection process we are conducting is the peaceful alternative, and it requires very active Iraqi cooperation," he said.

ElBaradei's spokeswoman Melissa Fleming underlined the inspectors' message of the last few days:

"What we are looking for is proof that they have destroyed weapons, proof that they haven't produced (weapons). We are saying Iraq has to make the effort itself to prove it, not just open doors."

The inspections have yet to uncover compelling evidence of banned weapons programmes, but the United States has said they are designed as a test of cooperation with a UN disarmament resolution rather than an effort to find hidden arms.

"The test is: 'Is Saddam Hussein cooperating?'...he's not doing that," Rumsfeld said on the "Fox News Sunday" television programme. "If the test is, are the Iraqis going to cooperate - that's something you're going to know in a matter of weeks, not in months or years."

He said Washington had "a lot of intelligence" to establish that Iraq had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes, and that there was significant information about Iraqi "efforts to deceive" by hiding and dispersing weapons.

UN teams, who returned to Iraq in November after four years away, headed for at least seven sites in search of traces of the weapons programmes that Iraq says it has eradicated.

Blix had said before leaving Cyprus that Saturday's discovery of documents at the home of an Iraqi scientist was a worrying indication that Iraq was choosing to hide relevant papers that it should be actively delivering to the inspectors.

UN inspectors had raided the scientist's house and found 3,000 pages of material apparently related to enrichment of uranium that could be used for nuclear weapons.

"Iraq has an obligation to give a full declaration, so they (documents) should have been given. Why are they still there? Are there more?" he said.

"These are not weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Documents are not WMD. Shells are not. But they are a sign that not everything has been declared and that is worrying."

Global protests on Saturday underlined growing anxiety at the prospect of war in the oil-rich Gulf region.

From Tokyo to Cairo, Paris to San Francisco, demonstrators staged one of the biggest waves of anti-war protests since the United States and its ally Britain began pouring warplanes, ships and tens of thousands of troops into the Gulf region.

Organisers estimated a turnout of 50,000 in San Francisco and 500,000 on the national Mall in Washington, some holding placards reading "No Blood for Oil" and "Would Jesus Bomb Them?"

Though US opinion polls have shown broad support for ousting Saddam, a Newsweek survey found 60 percent of Americans wanted to take more time to explore non-military solutions.

Leaders of the main world religions also appealed for a peaceful resolution after a symposium at the Vatican.

"Opting for peace... demands an active struggle against hatred, oppression and disunity, but not by using methods of violence," they said in a joint statement.

In Iraq, Saddam told a group of army officers: "After putting our faith in God, victory is absolutely assured. We don't see it on the horizon, rather it is in our grasp and inside our chests."