Baghdad, Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Iraq offered increased cooperation with the United Nations during two days of talks that chief arms inspector Hans Blix called a ``mixed bag,'' an outcome likely to renew the Security Council debate over how long the inspections should be allowed to continue. ``I perceived a more serious attitude and I welcome that,'' Blix said at a news conference with Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ``If we see quick progress then we will be given the time we need.'' Blix said Iraqi officials turned over documents on the status of previously discovered biological and chemical weapons, created a commission to look for more paperwork and suggested UN tests of the areas where they say the weapons were destroyed. Iraq didn't agree to enact new laws banning weapons of mass destruction or to allowing surveillance flights by U-2 aircraft from the U.S., Blix said. He said Iraq promised a decision on the flights by Friday, when Blix and ElBaradei are scheduled to report to the Security Council on Saddam Hussein's compliance with the UN resolution of Nov. 8 setting terms for inspections and threatening ``serious consequences'' for any failure to cooperate with inspectors. U.S. President George W. Bush has vowed to lead a coalition of nations, including the U.K., to topple Hussein's regime if Iraq refuses to disarm. Both countries are deploying about 225,000 troops in the Persian Gulf.
Little Deterrent
Iraq's steps toward greater compliance aren't likely to deter the U.S., or the push for continue inspections by China, France or Russia, council members that could veto a resolution, according to Arthur Helton, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, as policy analysis group. ``The mixed message is not enough to slow the U.S. down,'' Helton said. ``The U.S. anticipated it and is projecting a tough response. But this won't make it any easier. There will be cranky discussion about continuing inspections by countries that doubts about U.S. policy.'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the talks between the UN weapons inspectors and Iraq didn't alter the U.S. position. ``The president has said that given the fact that Saddam Hussein is not disarming, time is running out,'' Fleischer said. Hussein has ``weeks, not months'' to comply, U.S. ``Saddam Hussein has thrown away repeatedly the chances to live up to his obligations,'' Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with Nine Network of Australia's Sunday program. ``It's only fitting that we're in a period of weeks, not months in which he needs to respond or in which the international community has to disarm him.''
Another Resolution
British officials have said they might offer a resolution authorizing military action after next Friday's report. The resolution would give Hussein as little as 48 hours to leave Baghdad if Blix and ElBaradei report that the Iraqi leader is still refusing to disarm fully, the U.K. Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported, citing unidentified sources. Germany and France, among members of the Security Council supporting further weapons inspections after Secretary of State Colin Powell presented evidence Wednesday that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, are working on a plan for a UN peacekeeping force to monitor disarmament. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will outline the joint initiative to the German parliament next week, said Defense Ministry spokesman Norbert Bicher. Surveillance, Inspections
Under the plan, UN peacekeeping forces, including some from Germany, would supervise disarmament and declare all of Iraq a ``no-fly zone,'' Germany's weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported. The program, which may be submitted as a draft resolution to the UN, would include French surveillance planes and triple the number of UN arms inspectors in Iraq. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country supports the efforts of Germany and France to avert a war. ``I think that the positions of Russia, Germany and France are practically the same,'' Putin said at a news conference after meeting with Schroeder in Berlin. France, meanwhile, sought to counter the impression that it shares Schroeder's opposition to war at all costs. ``France has never excluded any military action,'' French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said at the conference. ``With this, I want to clarify a possible misunderstanding of the French position.'' Powell said he hadn't seen the French and German proposal.
``I assume it's some variation of what the French proposed at the UN on Wednesday'' that called for increasing the number of UN inspectors in Iraq and more reconnaissance, he said. ``We have to keep our eye focused on the ball,'' Powell said. ``The ball is Iraqi noncompliance, not the need for more inspectors.'' The report on Friday from Blix and ElBaradei on whether Iraq is cooperating with the inspections should prompt the UN to deliberate what the next measures should be, Powell said. ``I don't think next steps should be let's send in more inspectors to be stiffed by the Iraqis,'' Powell said. ElBaradei was somewhat more positive than Blix, saying they made ``good progress'' in the two days of talks. ``I am seeing the beginning of a change on heart on the part of Iraq,'' ElBaradei said. ``There is an eagerness of them to move on some of these issues.'' In another new peace initiative, Pope John Paul II will send an envoy to Iraq to meet with President Saddam Hussein, a Vatican spokesman said. Cardinal Roger Etchegaray will meet with Hussein tomorrow, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement. He would be accompanied by Monsignor Franco Coppola, a representative of the Vatican secretary of state. //www.quote.bloomberg.com