Iraq raised a string of objections yesterday to requests by the UN head of weapons inspection, Mr Richard Butler, for documents about its prohibited arms programmes.
It was Iraq's first reaction to such requests since UN weapons inspectors returned to Baghdad this week after Iraq said it was resuming co-operating with UN teams, under threat of military action by the United States.
The US has said the threat remains if Iraq again reneges on its promise to comply with demands of the UN Special Commission (Unscom) in charge of scrapping its weapons of mass destruction.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, said officials were waiting for Mr Butler to determine the significance of the new information.
"We come at this problem of Iraqi compliance with a high degree of scepticism about their intentions," he said.
In two letters to Mr Butler, the Iraqi foreign ministry under-secretary, Mr Riyadh al-Qaysi, said the trend of discussions in the Security Council was to proceed first with a promised comprehensive review of Iraq's compliance so far with council resolutions. The council would then decide what more needed to be done regarding disarmament.
A full accounting by Unscom and the International Atomic Energy Agency of Baghdad's chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programmes is a key condition for any lifting of sanctions in force since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.