LONDON: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may have bought time by acceding to intrusive arms inspections, but a US-led invasion to remove him remains probable.

Mustafa Alani, a London-based Iraqi analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, said war would have been certain had Saddam not accepted UN Security Council resolution 1441 demanding that Iraq disarm or face serious consequences.

“Now the chances are only 99 per cent,” he said.

Britain insists war is not inevitable if Iraq obeys the UN resolution in full. China, France and Russia, with Arab backing, say the text they approved does not provide an automatic trigger for war if Iraqi compliance is deemed incomplete.

The United States has promised to discuss any Iraqi non-cooperation with the Security Council, while vowing to deprive Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) with or without the 15-nation body’s blessing.

“Military conflict is not inevitable after 1441, but Saddam’s full disarmament is,” said Hoshyar Zebari, who represents the Kurdish Democratic Party in London. The acid test would come when UN inspections resume later this month.

With a relentless US military buildup under way, analysts say intense US pressure for maximum rigour in inspections will one day collide with Iraqi resistance to the galling surrender of dignity and sovereignty that such scrutiny would entail.

Last week’s Iraqi parliament vote to reject the resolution showed Baghdad’s bitterness at the prospective loss of face.

Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, are due in Baghdad on Monday, with inspections to start on November 27.

The first significant test is a Dec 8 deadline for Iraq to submit a full account of all its banned weapons programmes — whose very existence Baghdad fervently denies.

QUEST FOR SURVIVAL: Saddam, whose only realistic survival gambit is to play for time, may grudgingly admit some residual WMD capacity to avoid anything that Washington would swiftly construe as obstruction or a “material breach” of Security Council resolutions.

“Assuming we get over first hurdle of the document, Saddam’s best option is to be more cooperative than in the past to complicate any US effort to say he that he is in significant breach of his commitments,” said Neil Partrick, a Middle East expert at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London.

“However, his expectation that a ground invasion will happen at some point is a reason for him to keep back some capabilities to be used in the conflict,” he said. “The assumption in Baghdad is that cooperation won’t prevent war.”

The United States may defer a confrontation until its forces have finished girding for a conflict that may require a quarter of a million troops to invade and occupy Iraq.

Zebari said much hung on the military timetable. “The Americans won’t be ready till January,” he predicted, though he said the Kurds were not privy to US military planning.

Alani said the “mother of all resolutions” amounts to a minefield for the Iraqis, offering no immunity to any location or person in the land from the sleuthing of the arms experts, and setting up a virtual UN state-within-a-state.

SOLID PRETEXT: Washington hawks will want to hold Iraq to the letter of the resolution. But with France and Russia arguing for a less confrontational approach, the United States may not want to be seen to be launching an attack on an inconsequential detail.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell may argue that time — but not too much time — should be given to test Iraq’s cooperation with the much-toughened inspection regime.

If and when the UN effort breaks down, Partrick said Saddam would try to use his most loyal forces to suck invading American troops into a drawn-out urban conflict. “This would significantly complicate US war plans,” he added.

In the last resort, Saddam could use any doomsday weapons he still has to hit US forces or neighbouring countries, though this would invite overwhelming retaliation.

And if Saddam is able to defer the moment of truth, could any external factor deflect a US assault?—Reuters