WASHINGTON, Sept 15: Pressure grew on Baghdad on Sunday to agree to the return of UN weapons inspectors, amid predictions of military action in the New Year if President Saddam Hussein failed to comply.

Saudi Arabia, hitherto an outspoken opponent of military action against Iraq, indicated it would bow to the will of the United Nations if it endorsed a strike as Arab foreign ministers united in calling on Saddam to allow the inspectors back.

US President George W. Bush had made clear late Saturday that he was giving the United Nations one last chance to show its worth as a peace-keeping body before going it alone.

Other administration officials insisted they had additional reasons for going after Saddam, charging he had links with the Al Qaeda terror network, evidence of which London’s Sunday Telegraph said Britain would publish in a promised blackbook later this month.

But Iraq remained defiant, branding the US leader “liar, son of a liar,” and warning that the Arab masses would never forgive Washington for going to war, whatever the position of their rulers.

“If the United Nations takes a decision, by the Security Council, to implement a policy of the UN, every country that has signed the charter of the UN has to fulfil it,” Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told CNN.

The Saudis, a key launchpad in the 1991 Gulf war, had previously insisted they would not allow their territory to be used in the case of an attack mounted by Washington alone.

In another interview, with the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, Prince Saud urged Iraq to agree to weapons inspections to spare its people a war which risked breaking the country apart.

“Since Iraq says it does not possess weapons of mass destruction and has no plans to produce any, why doesn’t it agree to the return of inspectors to settle the issue which will go to Security Council,” the prince said.

Arab League foreign ministers sent a “unanimous” appeal to Iraq on Saturday to let the inspectors in, secretary general Amr Mussa said in New York.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammud, whose country currently chairs the Arab League, said: “We want Iraq to implement the Security Council resolutions which will end the current crisis.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher also told journalists: “What we want is the return of inspectors, and we have appealed to Iraq to accept their return in order to achieve peace and security for the Iraqi people and its neighbours,” the London-based daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reported.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has announced that he will tour the Middle East this week to gather support for an initiative to persuade Iraq to allow the inspectors back and avoid a war.

Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said his team could begin examining Iraq’s arsenals within two weeks if Baghdad gave its permission.

“First we would have to reach some practical agreements with Iraq on how the inspections would be carried out. Then we would send an exploratory mission,” Blix told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

“In a month, a large enough group could be put together. But the first inspections could happen within two weeks,” he said.

However Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri again insisted that any return of the inspectors, who were withdrawn on the eve of the last major US-led offensive against Iraq in 1998, be tied to the lifting of 12-year-old UN sanctions.

“We accept the resolutions. We did not expel the inspectors, they were withdrawn. Their return can only be part of applying UN resolutions,” Sabri told German television news station N24.

“Iraq’s sovereignty must be respected, and the inspections must result in the easing of sanctions against Iraq and the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, particularly in Israel,” he said.

The Baghdad media meanwhile lashed out at Bush branding him a “liar, son of a liar.”

And Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan warned the United States that their interests in the Middle East would be at risk in any war, regardless what support they received from the region’s rulers.

If the United States carries out its threats to attack Iraq, “it should know that 250 million Arabs will consider themselves targeted by the aggression, irrespective of the declared or undeclared position of this or that (Arab) ruler,” the weekly Tikrit quoted him as saying.

“The United States must rethink its policy if it wants to preserve its interests in the region, otherwise the Arab nation will reconsider its attitude toward (Washington’s) policy, which is hostile to the Arabs and aligned to Israel.”—AFP