United Nations Iraq

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, breaking his silence on the looming showdown with the United States over U.N. weapons inspections, said Friday that Baghdad is willing to accept any plan to avoid violence as long as its "legitimate" demands are met. Hussein made the comments after a meeting with the Russian ambassador to Iraq, according to the state-controlled Iraqi News Agency. He was also quoted as saying Baghdad was not looking for trouble when it stopped cooperating with the U.N.

For Cees Wolterbeek, a handsome Dutch colonel with a PhD in chemistry, the first tip-off was the knitting. The colorful skeins of wool and long needles resting on a desk struck the U.N. weapons inspector as a curious discovery in the bombed-out ruins of Iraq's massive Muthanna plant that Iraqis claimed had manufactured pesticides. He decided to keep poking around. Hours later, in a desk buried deep under debris wrought by U.S.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein pardoned all political prisoners Sunday in a surprise gesture apparently aimed at quieting criticism of his human rights record and winning an end to crippling U.N. sanctions. The amnesty--the second ordered by Hussein in eight days--also covered suspected government opponents not yet convicted or even officially charged, even if they are in hiding or in exile.

Iraq's Al Muthanna chemical weapons complex, strewn with decaying and leaking munitions amid the rubble from the Persian Gulf War, is, in the words of a United Nations inspector, "the most dangerous place in the world." Its hellish image was seared into the minds of the inspectors some weeks ago when an Iraqi bulldozer started to crush 122-millimeter chemical warfare rocket projectiles under their watchful gaze. The Iraqis had assured them that all the projectiles were empty.

The Security Council remained paralyzed Tuesday in its effort to force Iraq to resume cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors as it became clear that the latest confrontation with Baghdad has evolved into a waiting game, with each side gambling that it can outlast its adversary.

After consultations with the French on Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to arrive here today to meet Iraqi leaders for what might be the last chance to negotiate Iraq out of the cross hairs of a U.S.-British strike force poised in the Persian Gulf.

The massive haul of secret documents carted out of Baghdad by U.N. inspectors provide definitive proof that Iraq was engaged in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, a Security Council source reported Wednesday. The source, obviously familiar with the material, at least in a general way, said the inspectors did not uncover any grand design for the manufacture of a nuclear bomb. But they did find plans for components indispensable for making such a weapon.

The formal cease-fire in the bloody, costly eight-year war between Iraq and Iran went into effect at 7 a.m. local time today (8 p.m. PDT Friday), and U.N. officials were optimistic that it would hold at least temporarily. U.N. truce observers were in place on both sides of the 740-mile border between Iraq and Iran to monitor any violations. And because both sides in the long conflict have observed a virtual truce since the cease-fire agreement was announced Aug.

Kurdish elders Sunday rejected an Iraqi proposal for the return of as many as 200,000 Kurds to their homes in the northern Iraqi city of Dahuk, dealing a setback to U.S. efforts to broker a solution to a massive refugee problem. For an unusual meeting in the refugee "way station" of Kani Masi, Kurdish guerrilla representatives, Iraqi generals and U.S. Army officers were flown in by U.S.

Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, discouraged and disappointed, returned to the United Nations on Monday and said his talks with Saddam Hussein were "unfortunately unsuccessful." Asked if he had lost hope of averting war in the Persian Gulf, he replied: "In some ways, yes."