WASHINGTON -- Confronted with an 11,807-page declaration that Iraq has quit trying to make weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration now must decide whether to use armed force against Iraq soon or allow United Nations inspections to continue for another two or three months.

Analysts with long experience dealing with Iraq warned Monday that the inspections were nothing more than a "shell game" orchestrated by Saddam Hussein, who has made a long habit of frustrating U.N. weapons inspectors.

Administration officials from the president on down have already said they believe Iraq still possesses banned biological or chemical weapons, leading the analysts to say it's almost impossible to think the United States will accept the voluminous Iraqi documentation.

Critics of U.S. policy said Monday that if the White House had intelligence showing Iraq was engaged in banned weapons programs, it would have made the specifics public long ago in a bid to build international support. With or without evidence, the critics said, President Bush seems to have decided on war to bring down Hussein.

Critics and supporters of U.S. policy agreed that Hussein's cooperation with U.N. inspectors is making it harder for the United States to build international support for a possible invasion of Iraq. The lack of broad support could affect the timing of a possible war and determine whether the United States goes in at the head of a broad coalition like the one gathered for the 1991 Persian Gulf war, or with a much smaller "coalition of the willing."

"Saddam Hussein is trying to suck us into an inspections trap," said Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and the National Security Council's Middle East expert under President Bill Clinton. Hussein is appearing to cooperate with the United Nations while actually concealing biological and chemical weapons and banned missiles, he said.

"The longer he can play that out, the more doubts he can sow, the more difficult it will be for the United States to win international support," added Indyk, now a Brookings Institution analyst.

OPTIONS FOR U.S.

His Brookings colleague Kenneth Pollack, who was director of Persian Gulf affairs for Clinton's National Security Council, said the Bush administration was likely to pursue one of two courses. It could interpret the Iraqi declaration as a "material breach" of U.N. resolutions, because Iraqi Gen. Amer al-Saadi said Sunday at a news conference that his country doesn't have any banned weapons, failing to account for tons of chemical weapons and SCUD missiles that were missing when U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998.

The alternative is to stand behind continued U.N. inspections in an attempt to find a "smoking gun," Pollack added. The problem with such cooperation is that "you continue to play into Saddam's hands," he said. "The Iraqis are confident they can hide weapons of mass destruction."

But if Iraq were caught with biological and chemical weapons or if SCUDs were found, the U.N. Security Council might be willing to authorize military action led by the United States, he said.

Indyk said that disclosing intelligence about Iraq's continued possession of banned weapons could backfire, instead of building world support. British Prime Minister Tony Blair already tried such a tactic when he issued a white paper on Iraq, and Hussein's regime responded by inviting the media to visit suspected weapons research or storage sites, which had been cleaned up.

"I think they have effectively hidden this stuff," Indyk said.

But Stephen Zunes, a University of San Francisco political scientist who is a critic of Bush's policy toward Iraq, said the Iraqi declaration, which is now being examined by U.S. and U.N. analysts, made life tougher for the president.

"The United States is going to have a real hard time making a case for war unless it can find significant falsification" in the report, he said. "Apologists for the White House say they have evidence that Iraq is lying. If they had the evidence, they would have made it public long ago."

BUSH BENDS TO OPPOSITION

Zunes said he remained convinced the president was planning a war against Iraq. But he said opposition had already forced Bush to change course.

"There's no question he is going to war," Zunes said. "But because of foreign and domestic opposition, he had to go to the U.N., and now (military action) may be more difficult to do.

"That's because Iraq appears to be doing what it is supposed to do."

Zunes said he wouldn't be surprised if Iraq is lying about its weapons of mass destruction. But even if Iraq is lying, that still isn't grounds for war, he contended.

An alternative to war would be continued reliance on U.N. inspections and sanctions against Iraq until the world body is satisfied Iraq no longer possesses the banned weapons. But Bush has expressed unwillingness to go this route, saying Iraq has had 11 years to comply.

Asked whether Bush was determined to go to war, press secretary Ari Fleischer said Monday, "I think from the president's point of view that the strongest path to peace is by making certain that Saddam Hussein understands that he must disarm.

"In the president's judgment, it may also be the best path to make sure that we protect the American people so that Saddam Hussein does not fool the world, develop weapons of mass destruction only later to use them."

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

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