The Chief UN weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix said tonight Iraq still had not made a "fundamental decision" to disarm, despite a recent handover of documents his experts welcomed.
Dr Blix, who is readying another report to the UN Security Council this week, told reporters he thought Iraq had stepped up its efforts to release documents and other data as required by United Nations inspectors.
But he said, in answers to reporters' questions, "Full cooperation or a breakthrough? No, I don't think you can say that. We have a very long list of disarmament issues and it will require a big effort in order to clarify all of those."
"I do not think I can say there is evidence of a fundamental decision (to disarm) but there is some evidence of some increased activity," he said. "There is certainly more activity now."
Diplomats said, however, they did not expect Dr Blix's written report to contain such precise language and thereby give ammunition to the United States and Britain, who are moving towards war, and their opponents, France, Germany and Russia, who want inspections to continue.
"It will be glass half-empty, glass half-full," said one envoy, who had seen a draft of the report, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The diplomats also said they expected Iraq to begin destroying its al-Samoud 2 missiles by Saturday as Dr Blix has ordered, a demand supported by all Security Council members.
Dr Blix too seemed to hold out hope, saying "These things are deployed, a lot of them are deployed out in the field and it is quite an effort to have it destroyed."
However, Dr Blix has described as "positive" six letters sent to him by Iraq over the past few days that offered documents relating to weapons of mass destruction that Baghdad said it disposed of in 1991.
One letter said Iraq had found an R-400 bomb containing an unidentified liquid at a site where biological weapons had been destroyed. He said on Wednesday this liquid "may be biological depending on the markings on the bomb."
TodayUN weapons inspectors returned to the Al-Aziziyah range, where excavations of R-400 aerial bombs were under way, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said. Iraq had these bombs, filled with biological agents had been unilaterally destroyed in 1991 but the inspectors sought proof of this.