BAGHDAD: A US congressman visiting here said on Sunday that there was a “strong possibility” Iraq would agree to unrestricted UN weapons inspections if President Bush backed down from his call for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to be replaced.

Republican Nick J. Rahall II, D-W.Va., said in an interview that meetings this weekend with senior Iraqi officials, including the deputy prime minister and a speaker of the national assembly, left him with the impression that Saddam’s government was “very interested” in allowing inspectors to return unconditionally, but wanted diplomats from countries other than the United States to serve as independent arbiters of disputes between Iraq and the United Nations inspection commission.

“I feel the Iraqis want to give peace a chance, and I’m convinced the majority of Americans want the same,” Rahall said.

Rahall said he told the Iraqi leadership that “in order to give this opening for peace a chance, there has to be total, unconditional and unfettered access” for UN inspectors.

“But when Bush talks of regime change, they (the Iraqis) don’t want to hear my message,” Rahall said. “They say, ‘What’s the point of letting the inspectors in?’ They feel that whatever they do, they’re going to get hit.”

Bush has repeatedly said that Saddam’s ouster would be in the best interest of Iraqis and the world. Bush has called for Iraq to consent to a resumption of UN inspections to determine whether it has resumed nuclear, biological or chemical weapons programmes, but he and members of his administration have expressed doubts about whether Iraq would give inspectors unconditional access.

Iraq maintains that all its weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed. The deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, insisted on Saturday that even if his government readmitted the weapons inspectors, the United States and Britain would proceed with military action. “It’s doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t,” he said.

Aziz, who met with Rahall for about two hours, proposed asking other nations to serve as interlocutors between Iraq and the UN Security Council, which oversees the inspectors, Rahall said. Echoing an idea Aziz raised with a British academic last week, Rahall said Aziz suggested Canada and South Africa be asked to fill that role.

The Iraqi government does not appear to have decided whether to make such a proposal, according to diplomats and analysts.

Rahall, the grandson of Lebanese immigrants who says he is a sometime critic of US policy in the Middle East, is travelling here as the leader of a US delegation organized by the Institute for Public Accuracy, a Washington-based advocacy group that describes itself as an organization that promotes points of view that “are commonly drowned out by corporate-backed think tanks and other influential institutions.” The delegation also includes former senator James Abourezk, D-S.D.

Rahall, who voted for a resolution in support of the 1991 war against Iraq, said he does not agree with the administration’s arguments this time around. “It’s a continuation of a vendetta of 12 years ago,” he said. “It appears strange to me that a year ago this was not an imminent threat to the US, but now, six weeks before an election, it is.”—Dawn/The LAT-WP News Service (c) Washington Post.