A Russian envoy spoke with President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, leading the way among Iraq's sympathizers in pushing for a diplomatic solution. France, Turkey, the Arab League, Jordan and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat all launched their own peace missions and appeals to Saddam.
Envoys from Russia, France and Turkey would stress the same message, France's Foreign Ministry said: The danger would end only if Iraq gave in to U.N. demands for full access to all suspected weapons sites.
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked the Security Council to double the amount of oil Iraq can sell under an exemption to a U.N. embargo. The United States and Britain, Iraq's leading adversaries on the council, indicated they could go along with the increase for humanitarian reasons. The step could ease tensions in the crisis.
For its part, Iraq insisted it was open to anything that would help avert attack.
"Iraq will not neglect any opportunity that will help it foil American schemes to direct a military strike against it," Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahhaf told an emergency session of Iraq's National Assembly.
The intercession by Iraq's allies came as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, making Washington's case for military force to end the standoff.
Iraq repeatedly has refused to allow U.N. inspectors into Saddam's palaces and other off-limits sites, drawing the U.S. threats to attack.
The inspectors are trying to determine whether Iraq has destroyed its chemical and biological weapons programs, and a U.N. embargo imposed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait is to stand until that and other conditions are met.
Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon said Iraq would fax House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) an invitation to send a congressional delegation to one of Saddam's off-limits palaces.
"We want to allow them to make sure for themselves there are no prohibited items in those sites," Hamdoon said.
Britain said it would draft a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that Baghdad grant the weapons inspectors "full and unrestricted access" to all sites.
The resolution could lay the foundation for military action. It would run the risk, however, of veto by Iraq's sympathizers - Russia, China or France - among the five permanent Security Council members.
In New York, Annan made clear he hoped Washington would not act on its own, but refused to say if he believed it had the authority to do so: "I think the international community has acted in unison on Iraq in the past, and I think everyone would want to maintain that unity."
Annan renewed calls for Iraq to stop blocking U.N. inspections, stressing what was at stake.
"It is my sincere hope that diplomatic efforts to this end will succeed," he said. "Failure risks another round of devastating military action, which may have unpredictable consequences."
Russia, which brokered an end to the last U.N.-Iraq crisis, sent envoy Viktor Posuvaluyk for talks Monday with Saddam and other Iraqi officials.
The state-run Iraqi News Agency said Posuvalyuk delivered a message from Russian President Boris Yeltsin aimed at finding "appropriate political solutions to the crisis fabricated by the U.S. administration."
Riyad al-Qaisi, Iraq's deputy foreign minister, would say only that the talks were continuing and ''quite, quite detailed.''
He denied a Russian news report that the Russian envoy had persuaded Saddam to end the crisis by opening eight off-limits sites to inspection. ''No such thing was discussed,'' al-Qaisi said.
It was the first of a flurry of peace missions: A French envoy was to arrive Tuesday, the secretary-general of the Arab League on Wednesday, and Turkey's foreign minister within days.
Arafat dispatched an aide to Baghdad with a letter for Saddam, and Egyptian newspapers reported that President Hosni Mubarak had sent a rare message late Sunday to the Iraqi leader urging restraint.
Unlike previous confrontions with the United Nations, Iraq said Monday it was not taking any special precautions to guard its oil installations from attack. The news raised hope that Iraq too saw a peaceful end to the latest crisis.
''Baghdad has a record of escalating the situation, only to back off at the last minute,'' columnist Waleed Saadi wrote in the Jordan Times. ''So there is every reason to believe that the Iraqi regime will do the same thing this time and seek a peaceful solution at the last minute.''
02-03-98
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