DATE: Tuesday, November 11, 1997            TAG: 9711110260

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS 

DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS                    LENGTH:  102 lines

U.N. SEEKS WAY TO FORCE IRAQ TO ADMIT INSPECTORS U-2 SPY PLANES RESUME FLIGHTS WITHOUT DRAWING FIRE FROM GROUND.

U-2 surveillance flights resumed over a defiant Iraq Monday as the United Nations Security Council met to consider ways to force Saddam Hussein to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to do their jobs.

Despite Iraqi threats to shoot at the spy planes and their American pilots, the Pentagon reported no trouble.

At the United Nations, nothing in a discussion between Iraqi envoy Tariq Aziz and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan hinted at common ground after two weeks of increasingly bellicose rhetoric.

As Defense Secretary William Cohen postponed a foreign trip because of the crisis, Aziz argued Iraq deserves a chance to lodge ``legitimate grievances'' with the Security Council. He cast Iraq as a victim of American evil-doing and said the U.N. weapons inspection program is overly influenced by the U.S. government.

The United States urged the Security Council to condemn Iraq and threaten it with ``serious consequences'' unless Baghdad backs down from its refusal to cooperate with Americans on U.N. weapons inspection teams.

But Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov said his government opposes``any threat or use of force'' in the crisis and indicated Iraq's complaints needed to be heard.

The U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, said the United States opposes Iraq's request for a Security Council hearing to air its grievances.

Arriving for the private council meeting, Richardson said he would ask the 15-member body to adopt a ``strong resolution'' to condemn Iraq, demand full compliance with U.N. orders, impose a travel ban on Iraqi officials who interfere with inspections and warn of ``serious consequences to follow.''

It appeared the U.S. priority was to get all 15 council members to state for the record that what Iraq did was illegal rather than push for punitive measures.

The council meeting ended after about 2 1/2 hours, and there was no indication when a vote would be taken. U.N. officials said they expected a vote by mid-week.

France, China and Russia have joined with Washington in demanding that Hussein rescind his decision to expel the American inspectors from Iraq.

Before the session, Aziz said Iraq wanted a reduction in the number of Americans in the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, which conducts the weapons inspections. Iraq also wants a timetable for ending the inspections and lifting economic sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which led to the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

But Secretary-General Annan said the composition of inspection teams ``is strictly a matter for the United Nations.'' Richardson said Washington would ``absolutely not'' accept any reduction in the number of Americans working for the inspection program.

In Washington, President Clinton's top military advisers canceled foreign trips Monday even as the administration sought a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

Clinton said that the U-2 safely completed a mission Monday.

``That's a good thing,'' Clinton said. ``But it does not change the larger issue, which is that U.N. weapons inspections have been stopped by Saddam Hussein.''

Clinton said he was looking to the U.N. Security Council for a strong statement on the urgency of resuming weapons inspections in Iraq.

Underscoring that U.S. military options remain on the table, Cohen and Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, postponed scheduled trips to Asia this week.

Cohen said Clinton asked him and Shelton to postpone their trips so they could be more readily available for consultations.

Asked whether more U.S. forces would be moved into the area, Shelton said, ``We have adequate forces there now. . . . There's no plan as of right this minute to put additional forces (in) for the mission required.''

However, military officials said that it would be possible to move additional forces into the Persian Gulf, such as the aircraft carrier George Washington, which is now in the eastern Mediterranean. The carrier Nimitz, along with more than a dozen Navy vessels, is in the Persian Gulf as part of the 20,000-strong contingent of U.S. military forces in the region.

Members of Congress from both parties have said they would support any administration decision to move decisively against Saddam.

In Baghdad, Iraq did not even attempt to impede the U-2 plane that soared over Iraq for three hours.

At the same time, several hundred Iraqi civilians - many carrying blankets and cooking stoves - moved onto the grounds of President Saddam Hussein's main palace in Baghdad to shield it from any U.S. attack.

The move was reminiscent of Saddam's attempt before the 1991 Persian Gulf War to use Westerners in Iraq as ``human shields'' for factories and office buildings he feared would be targeted by the U.S.-led allied forces.

However, Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries did not try to stop a U.S.-piloted plane that crossed into southern Iraq from Saudi Arabia Monday. The government said it was out of range of Iraqi gunners.

Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf protested the flight in a letter to Annan, saying that Iraq no longer recognizes U-2 flights as part of the U.N. inspection program. Iraq, he said, would respond in the future ``in a manner that preserves Iraq's sovereignty and security.'' MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by Knight-Ridder News Service

and The Associated Press. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

Iraqi envoy Tariq Aziz says Iraq deserves a chance to lodge

grievances with the U.N.

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