Talks, conditions are out: Iraq rages

“Any talks, any discussion, unilaterally, directly with us or within the Security Council about the future shall not be accepted by Iraq unless first the aggressors should be made accountable for their aggression,” Deputy Prime Minister TariQ Aziz told a press conference on Monday.

“Then the embargo on Iraq should be lifted … Iraq cannot tolerate the embargo and UNSCOM,” the UN Special Commission charged with disarming Iraq, Aziz said.

Iraq would also refuse any conditions set out by Washington and London to resume relations with the United Nations, he insisted.

In New York this week, the Security Council begandiscussions of the aftermath of the bombings amid sharp divisions on the future of the UN weapons inspection regime.

Meanwhile, the delivery of food and other basic supplies to Iraq resumed today, a few hours before un humanitarian workers were due back in Baghdad, the United Nations said.

Around 100 trucks started to cross the border from Jordan this morning, a spokesman for the UN aid programme said in a statement and added that the certification of deliveries had resumed at the Gulf port of Um Qasr.

The resumption of deliveries comes after the USA and the UK declared an end overnight on Saturday to Operation Desert Fox after four days of air strikes.

Diplomats said Russia would submit a new draft statement on Tuesday, proposing a special meeting of UNSCOM in January to be attended by its commissioners of 20 nations.

The Russians suggest that UNSCOM’s future, and that of its outspoken chairman Richard Butler, should be discussed by the UNSCOM commissioners.

Butler has come under fire in the wakeof the attacks that were triggered by hisnegative report about Iraqi compliance with UNSCOM inspectors.

China and Russia on Monday criticized the Australian diplomat, and France also Has suggested privately that Butler should resign, diplomats said.

Britain and the United States insist UNSCOM should verify that Iraq no longer holds any weapons of mass destruction before sanctions can end.

"Without UNSCOM, it’s impossible for sanctions to be lifted because UNSCOM is thE vehicle established by the Security Council to verify Iraq’s disarmament in the W eapons of mass destruction field," US State Department spokesman James Foley said M Onday.

Butler said it was essential for the United Nations to find a way to continue monitoring Iraqi military developments and ensure that facilities damaged in the US-L ed Air strikes were not repaired.

"I’M Deeply conscious of how difficult this problem is," he said.

Aziz insisted that the brunt of US and British strikes had been taken by civilians but gave noprecise figure for casualties saying only that the civilian casualti es were much higher than the military.

Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations Nizar Hamdoon said Sunday that thousandsof people were killed or wounded, without elaborating.

Aziz mocked Blair’s assertion that the strikes had done "awful damage" to Iraq’s"essential infrastructures" saying the four days of aerial bombardment which ended Saturday night had killed just 62 Iraqi military personnel and wounded 180.

He accused both British and US leaders of lying about the achievements of Operation Desert Fox.

Aziz said the strikes had focused on the Republican Guard and Special RepublicanGuard, with a total of 38 killed and 100 injured.

The first is an elite branch of the Iraqi Army, the second a highly specialisedand secretive branch within the Republican Guards overseeing President Saddam Husse in’s personal security and the protection of vital government sites.

For his part, General Anthony Zinni, commander-in-Chief of the US CentralCommanD, Told reporters that Operation Desert Fox was "a highly successful operating" that "degraded Iraq’s capability to use weapons of mass destruction."

But former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who resigned his post last Augustclaimed the strikes had failed "to degrade Saddam’s capabilities" and "actually mad E him stronger."

Meanwhile Butler said Tuesday that it was not up to Iraq to decide whether UN inspectors could return to Iraq. "It’s not for Baghdad alone to make that declaration," Butler, a former Australian diplomat, told ABC Radio in Sydney.

"Of course their cooperation is fairly essential, but the weapons inspection andthe Special Commission are the creation of the Security Council and the Security C ouncil has a certain amount of say over these things."

Butler told ABC he expected to remain at UNSCOM, despite vilification by some countries opposed to military action. In another development, the Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi has urged Iraq to accept United Nations weaponsinspections, a Japanese foreign ministry offici al said Tuesday.

"Iraq must accept UN weapons inspections quickly," Kharrazi was quoted by a ministry official as saying during talks in Tokyo the previous day with Japanese Foreig N Minister Masahiko Komura.