The US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, said yesterday Iraq continues to "evade and deceive" UN arms experts, adding that military force remained an option should Baghdad fail to give full access to suspected sites. "Iraq continues to evade and deceive the United Nations inspectors who are working to destroy Iraq's [weapons of mass destruction] programme," Mr Cohen said.
Baghdad has barred inspections at 63 sites it labelled "sensitive" since weapons experts resumed their work after a three-week suspension.
"I don't accept the proposition that they will not be allowed to conduct those inspections at suspected sites," Mr Cohen said. "If that is the case then the president, obviously, would consult with the Security Council and other allies to determine what further action might be appropriate."
Mr Cohen added that the US continued to consider using force to make President Saddam Hussein comply with UN resolutions.
"Military force is always an option but . . . it's not a first option," Mr Cohen said. However, he added, "if it is necessary to resort to force, I think you can be reasonably assured it will not be a pinprick."
The US yesterday deployed some 30 F-15 and F-16 fighters as well as B-1 bombers in Bahrain. It has sent a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, the USS George Washington, and deployed radar-evading Stealth fighters in Kuwait.
"The force is there to give the president of the United States whatever flexibility he feels that he needs," Mr Cohen said. "The fact is that throughout this six-year period [since the 1991 Gulf War], Saddam Hussein has worked to frustrate and obfuscate, conceal in every fashion possible in order to prevent the inspectors form gaining access to certain sites," he said.
In Baghdad, Iraq accused the US yesterday of pushing UN arms inspectors into a fresh crisis by insisting on access to presidential sites, as the weapons experts carried out new searches without incident.
Iraq also called for rapid implementation of an agreement with Russia under which it lifted a ban on US arms inspectors working for the UN Special Commission (Unscom) on disarmament.
"The Iraqi-Russian accord and the legitimate demands of Iraq must be settled quickly," an official spokesman said after a meeting of the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council chaired by President Saddam.
He called on Washington "to spare the region from a catastrophe and revise its hostile stand toward Iraq and Arab countries".
Both the Iraqi side and Unscom said yesterday's inspections were free of incident for the fourth consecutive day since they resumed after a three-week break. "The work went on smoothly and all the inspections were carried out without any difficulty," Mr Alan Dacey of the UN monitoring centre in Baghdad said.
The United Nations Security Council is divided over the process for disarming Iraq. On Monday, the it failed to agree on a dis armament report after Russia rejected a British proposal for a short letter welcoming Friday's report by a UN panel on the work of Unscom.
Russia's delegation was expected to put forward new suggestions yesterday. The failure to reach consensus on a response to the report highlighted the split within the council.