Iraqi officials to meet deadline

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi officials promised to meet next month's deadline for disclosing information about banned weapons, a senior U.N. official said Tuesday, as differences emerged between the United Nations and Washington over what constitutes Iraqi violations of the U.N. resolution that authorized the inspection mission.\nMohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iraqi officials made the commitment during talks with chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix and other team members after they arrived Monday to resume the weapons inspection program after a four-year hiatus.\n"Iraq is committed to declare all it possesses regarding weapons of mass destruction, if it still has any of them ... and will also declare all of its activities in the chemical, biological and nuclear fields, even those of civilian use," ElBaradei told Associated Press Television News and Egypt's Nile television.\n"Iraq is committed to delivering this report before Dec. 8," ElBaradei said.\nMeeting the Dec. 8 deadline is one of the key demands laid down in the new Security Council resolution, which authorized U.N. inspectors to return to Iraq. President Bush has threatened military action if the Iraqis fail to cooperate fully with the resolution.\nSpeaking in Arabic, ElBaradei said the Iraqis were cooperating so far with the inspectors and had pledged to continue "implementing Security Council resolutions."\n"We hope that this oral commitment will be translated into fact when we begin inspections next week," he added.\nBlix and his team arrived in Baghdad as allied warplanes bombed Iraqi air defense systems in the northern no-fly zone. The U.S. military said the attack was launched after Iraqi gunners fired on the jets during routine patrols.\nIn Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday the Iraqi anti-aircraft fire "appears to be a violation" of the latest U.N. Security Council resolution.\nHowever, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan took issue with that interpretation, telling reporters in Kosovo that "I don't think the Council will say that this is in contravention of the resolution that was recently passed."\nBush has warned of "zero tolerance" of Iraqi infractions, warning they could lead to war. Iraq considers flights over the northern and southern zones as a violation of its sovereignty, and the Security Council never explicitly approved the operation.\nAnnan's interpretation, which is widely held within the 15-member Council, is another example of the differences between U.N. and U.S. officials over the inspection program, which is considered President Saddam Hussein's last chance to avoid war with the United States.\nThe Americans are pushing for early, intrusive inspections of presidential palaces and other sensitive sites, while U.N. authorities are speaking of building trust between the inspectors and the Iraqis.\nHowever, Mark Gwozdecky, spokesman for the U.N. nuclear controls agency, said the team has come "with a message ... (that) we are on a mission of peace" to overcome Iraqi hostility to the inspection program.\n"So we tried to convey this message that "let's start from scratch, let's cooperate fully and if we do it holds prospect for a lifting of sanctions on the Iraqi people and a peaceful resolution," he said.\nGwozdecky said that if the Iraqis cooperate, the inspectors should "have a very good feel" for Iraqi weapons programs "within a year."\n"Until we go in and get our people on the ground, we won't know," he added. "It's a little bit like an exploratory surgery that you don't know until you open up the patient"