"We will abide by whatever the [Security] Council decides," said Blix

STOCKHOLM, October 4 (IslamOnline & News agencies) – As some leaked U.N. reports revealed that Washington intends to use U.N. weapons inspections to occupy Iraq, a Swede who worked as an inspector said that some United Nations inspectors  looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the 1990s probably spied on the Arab country for their governments.

"There were episodes you could sense were strange. One team member made too many copies of documents. Then there were those who went to their embassies at night although they were not really allowed to do so," Ake Sellstrom told Swedish public service SVT television news Thursday, October 3.

Sellstrom was employed by the U.N. weapons inspection organization UNSCOM led by American Scott Ritter, whom Baghdad repeatedly accused of spying. The inspectors were forced to leave Iraq in December 1998, news agencies reported.

A divided U.N. Security Council is currently debating whether a new team of inspectors, now called UNMOVIC and led by Swede Hans Blix, should travel to Iraq and begin a new search for Baghdad's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Sellstrom said information obtained by means of electronic surveillance of Iraqi security forces' communications had clearly fallen into wrong hands, such as the U.S. and Israeli military, during his time with UNSCOM.

Some targets checked out by the weapons inspectors were bombed by the United States and its allies just a week later, Sellstrom said.

Earlier Thursday, Jean Pascal Zanders, head of chemical and biological warfare studies at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told a news conference that new Iraqi weapons inspections would be extremely difficult to carry out.

"If they don't come up with something in one or two months, then the United States will say 'This shows that inspections don't work' while Iraq will say 'You see, we don't have any weapons'."

"We need inspections over a large timeframe," Zanders said.

Meanwhile, an early return of arms inspectors to Iraq seemed unlikely Friday, October 4, amid continuing divisions in the U.N. Security Council over the use of force against Iraq, Agence France-Presse reported.

"There is an understanding in the Council that the inspectors cannot go back under existing resolutions," deputy U.S. ambassador James Cunningham said after chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix briefed the Council for more than two hours Thursday.

Ambassadors from the five veto-wielding permanent Council members – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China – met privately with Blix later.

Washington and London want to send Blix to Iraq with a "tough new" mandate, backed by the threat of immediate military action if Iraq refuses to cooperate with his inspection teams.

France wants an initial resolution defining the inspectors' mission, but says the Security Council must pass a second resolution if it wants to use force.

Russia and China feel that existing resolutions are adequate regarding the inspections, which were terminated four years ago.

Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed El-Baradei were due to meet U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice Friday in Washington.

Asked what he would discuss with the U.S. officials, Blix replied: "I hope to hear something of what their planning is and we will tell them what our planning is."

Blix said he would be bound by the Security Council's wishes.

"It would be awkward if we were doing inspections and a new mandate with changed directives arrived. We will abide by whatever the Council decides," he said.

"I hope it would not be a long delay. We are ready to go at the earliest practical opportunity."

Russia repeated Friday it did not support a British-U.S. draft resolution on Iraq that seeks tougher new ground rules on inspections backed by the threat of force.

"The existing U.N. Security Council resolutions on the Iraqi question are quite enough, and there is no need to draft new resolution whose demands step outside existing ones," Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov told the ITAR-TASS news agency.

Meanwhile the U.S. Congress was set to step up debate on Iraq Friday after the House of Representatives moved closer to granting President George W. Bush authorization to use military force against Baghdad.

Bush has repeatedly warned of moving unilaterally to oust his Iraqi counterpart Saddam Hussein if the U.N. Security Council does not sanction war on Iraq.

"Saddam has got to understand, the United Nations must know, that the will of this country is strong," Bush said in a speech in Washington Thursday.  

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