Moscow sends peace envoy as Saddam palace searched

UN inspectors hunted for banned weapons deep inside President Saddam Hussein's main Baghdad palace yesterday, as a senior Russian envoy flew in on a peace mission to avert a US-led war against Iraq.

Russia, which has kept closer ties than many with Iraq and is one of the UN Security Council's five veto-wielding states, sent a deputy foreign minister a day after US President George W. Bush warned Iraq that his patience was running out.

"We have to seize any chance to achieve and find a diplomatic and peaceful solution... and to avoid military scenarios," Alexander Saltanov, an Iraq expert, said on arrival.

UN inspectors also demanded Iraq's active help - not just passive acquiescence - so that they could get their job done.

Saddam was once again shown on Iraqi television defiantly brushing aside US and British threats of war: "We don't want to fight by choice, but when it is imposed upon us we'll fight."

It was unclear whether he was present when seven carloads of inspectors drove into the vast al-Jamhoury compound where he is widely believed to conduct much of his presidential business.

Inspectors complained afterwards that during a visit of three and a half hours, they had to wait two hours for keys to open four safes. The team checked government office buildings but did not go inside presidential offices.

The team leader would not say if any suspect materials were found. He said his experts took nothing from the safes.

Journalists, barred from entering the walled compound made up of dozens of buildings and lush gardens, could sneak only a glimpse from an iron-barred main gate guarded by armed soldiers.

On a trip to Moscow, the chief of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters: "I intend... to impress upon Iraq the need to shift gear from passive cooperation to active cooperation."

The UN's palace visit was its second to one of Saddam's compounds since inspectors resumed searches for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq eight weeks ago after a four-year break.

A palace employee, Wissam Essawi, told reporters the experts had asked workers what jobs they did and all insisted they did administrative tasks that had nothing to do with banned weapons.

Washington and its chief ally London have been pouring warplanes, ships and tens of thousands of troops into the oil-rich Gulf region while demanding Iraq abide by a UN Security Council resolution demanding it disarm or face war.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair readied more troops for war yesterday and insisted that Britain had the right to attack Iraq without explicit UN backing, despite warnings that military action could tear his centre-left Labour Party apart.

Yesterday, 3,000 marine commandos boarded the helicopter carrier Ocean to sail for the Gulf as part of Britain's biggest seaborne invasion task force in 20 years.

In Brussels, Nato officials said the US formally asked its Nato allies for indirect military assistance in case of war, including the deployment of missiles to protect Nato member Turkey, which borders Iraq.

Iraq, the world's eighth biggest oil exporter under tight UN sanctions but whose proven oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's, reiterated on Tuesday it had nothing to hide.

Oil prices simmered around two-year highs yesterday as a strike in oil producer Venezuela and the build-up to war on Iraq fired worries about supply.

ElBaradei has said he and fellow UN inspection chief Hans Blix would go to Baghdad this weekend for some tough talking on whether Iraq has chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or long-range missiles - all denied to it under UN resolutions.

The talks will be key to a major report the two are due to make to the Security Council on January 27 on Iraqi compliance.

US officials said Bush and Blair would meet at Camp David near Washington on January 31 after the UN report.

Since resuming inspections, UN experts have announced no concrete evidence that Iraq possesses or is developing nuclear, chemical or biological arms. But they say it has failed to account for some now missing items from its 1990s arsenal.

Iraq says it has no banned weapons, having destroyed anything that would have breached UN resolutions before inspectors returned in November.

Neither Washington nor London has declared a deadline for war but one U.S official said this week troops might not go in until March. April heralds fierce summer heat and sandstorms.

Iran said yesterday it did not expect any US-led attack to start before the annual Muslim pilgrimage in early February.

A senior Israeli security source said Israel was taking precautions on the assumption war would begin in mid-February.