BRITAIN: Saddam Hussein would try to hoodwink United Nations inspectors over his weapons of mass destruction programmes with a series of phoney concessions, British Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, predicted yesterday.
Giving evidence to the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee, Mr Straw said he anticipated President Saddam would move shortly on the crucial issue of allowing direct access to Iraqi scientists.
But the initiative would be a deception, Mr Straw told MPs.
"We can expect the Iraqis will continue trickling out so-called concessions, one at a time, to buy more time, while continuing a policy of concealment."
The UN inspectors have been demanding the right to question Iraqi scientists in the absence of regime officials, in the hope that such privacy will make them less fearful for their safety and more forthcoming about Saddam's weapons programmes.
"We can expect Iraq soon to announce interviews to take place unaccompanied. In truth, they will continue to be monitored, with interviewees to carry concealed microphones, or by bugging the rooms, and the interviewees will be well aware of this," said Mr Straw. Concessions would continue up until the point at which the international community did what Saddam wanted, warned Mr Straw, adding: "Then they will stop - and Saddam Hussein will be left in possession of an arsenal of deadly weapons."
Mr Straw said that Britain wanted a peaceful outcome to the crisis. However, if a new UN resolution could not be agreed, or was vetoed by one of the Security Council's permanent members, the government was in any case satisfied that resolution 1441 provided "sufficient legal authority... to justify military action against Iraq if they are in further material breach". Mr Straw told MPs: "We believe that there is express authority."
He added that Iraq has been in further material breach, because it failed to co-operate with the inspectors immediately, unconditionally and actively as required by resolution 1441. Pressed on whether the government would be prepared to allow the weapons inspectors more time to complete their task should chief inspector Dr Hans Blix request that when he reports back to the UN on Friday, Mr Straw was noncommittal, saying only: "We take account of what Dr Blix says."
Mr Straw urged observers to be sceptical about Saddam's tactics. Some of the critics of the tough UK/US policy had been "guilty of huge naivety".
Asked whether Saddam was capable of fabricating documents to try to demonstrate that he had destroyed banned weapons, Mr Straw told MPs: "He is capable of anything, including fabricating documents and evidence."
On the strains which the crisis has placed on relations between the US and some of its traditional allies, Mr Straw said the international community should be wary of placing the US in a position where it felt isolated, and obliged to act alone when confronted by crises.