Iraq's foreign minister Naji Sabri sent a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on August 16 asking to open negotiations with the United Nations before agreeing to reopen its country to weapons inspections. US officials were skeptical of the offer, noting that negotiations on the issue took place earlier this year and went nowhere.

Sabri's letter tempered remarks on August 12 by Iraq's information minister who said that UN weapons inspections in Iraq were "finished." Some Iraqi diplomats have said they see little reason to submit to renewed inspections when the Bush administration appears determined to press its invasion plans regardless of Iraq's response. 

When Iraq was defeated after the Gulf War in 1991, it was subjected to UN-imposed economic sanctions until inspectors certified that its programs to develop chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons had been eliminated. Inspections were begun in April, 1991. Inspectors never judged Iraq to be in compliance. The regime expelled them in December, 1998. The United States and Britain responded with several days on bombing, but they were not readmitted, and economic sanctions have remained in place ever since.

- 8/16/02