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After weeks of tough negotiations, the Security Council unanimously voted Friday to send UN inspectors into Iraq and warned of "serious consequences'' if its leader Saddam Hussein fails to meet disarmament obligations.
The inspectors must return within seven weeks and have been given greatly enhanced powers to seek out weapons of mass destruction.
All 15 council members voted for the US drafted resolution which gives Iraq seven days to accept what it called "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations."
The vote was taken in the presence of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who urged the Iraqi leadership to accept the resolution "for the sake of its own people and for the sake of world security and world order."
The resolution said the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must begin inspections within 45 days, that is to say by December 23.
The chairman of UNMOVIC, Hans Blix, has said that he and the IAEA director-general, Mohammed El-Baradei, will lead an advance team to Baghdad within a week to 10 days.
In Washington, President George W. Bush warned Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein Friday that he faces the "severest consequences'' if he defies the unanimously approved UN resolution.
"His cooperation must be prompt and unconditional, or he will face the severest consequences," Bush said from the White House Rose Garden after the UN Security Council passed the US-drafted measure.
(China Daily November 9, 2002)
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