But U.S. officials and a former high-ranking American member of
the inspections team said it could be several months before the
UN Special Commission tasked with finding and destroying
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction can render a verdict.

"You can't have a quick test," said Scott Ritter, who resigned from
UNSCOM earlier this year to protest restrictions on the
inspections. In the five months since Saddam blocked the
inspections teams, "Iraq has shuffled the deck, moved everything
around," he told NBC yesterday.

He said UNSCOM chief Richard Butler "needs time to get back
in, get his forces back in place, and then in about four to six
months he'll be able to carry out the kind of inspections where you
can actually find material."

About 150 UN relief workers began trickling back into Iraq
yesterday from Jordan, while the arms inspectors, who sat out the
latest crisis in nearby Bahrain, were scheduled to arrive today in
Baghdad, where they will be joined by Butler.

White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said it would be
Butler's call on whether Saddam was complying with U.S.
demands on access for the arms inspectors — a decision that
could trigger or ward off military action.

"He's not been shy in the past about expressing his views,"
Lockhart said of Butler.

U.S. fliers in the Persian Gulf region described an emotional
letdown after President Clinton twice called off bomber and cruise
missile strikes over the weekend.

Navy Capt. Carlton Jewett, head of aircraft operations aboard the
carrier Eisenhower, said his warplane crews "were actually
walking over to the aircraft and starting the engines" when they
were told to hold back Saturday.

"You ramp up your emotions, get high, and you are ready to go
out and do your business," Jewett said. "Then when you find out
things are put on hold, you have mixed emotions."

U.S. officials, meanwhile, contended that Iraq seriously
understated the size of biological and chemical weapons
stockpiles, citing vast discrepancies that could mean tons of
uncounted deadly weapons.

"There is a large discrepancy between the amount of biological
growth media . . . procured and the amount of agents that were or
could have been produced," State Department spokesman James
Rubin told reporters.

In the area of chemical weapons, Iraq has reported making 8,800
pounds of VX nerve gas, 220,000 pounds to 330,000 pounds of
nerve agents such as Sarin and 1.1 million pounds to 1.32 million
pounds of mustard gas.

But based on data from UN weapons inspectors, Rubin said, Iraq
may have produced an additional 1.32 million pounds of those
lethal agents.

-- Richard Sisk - 11/17/98