PARIS--Russian President Vladimir Putin joined France and Germany Monday in calling for beefed-up arms inspections in Iraq, giving Paris a victory in its diplomatic campaign to block a U.S. led war against the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Russia's move complicated matters for the United States and reaffirmed French President Jacques Chirac as the leader of \the war against the war,"" as commentators call it here. Chirac and Putin said U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq have yielded results, rejecting Washington, D.C.'s verdict that Iraqi intransigence has made inspections useless.
""We are against the war,"" Putin said. ""Both of our countries insist on the need to solve the problem and the crisis diplomatically.""
Iraq must cooperate actively, the French and Russian leaders said, and Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, Monday acceded to a top demand of U.N. inspectors by announcing that it will allow U-2 spy planes to operate without restriction to bolster their mission. But White House spokesman Scott McClellan said allowing the flights ""does nothing to change the bottom line.""
During a heated meeting of NATO in Brussels, Belgium, France, joined by Belgium and Germany, blocked NATO from starting contingency plans to protect Turkey in the event of war, causing another setback for the Bush administration's campaign against Iraq Monday. The three dissenting nations argued that preparing for war sends the wrong signal at the wrong time, but indignant U.S. officials accused them of causing a crisis in the alliance by failing to come to the defense of a member.
France, Russia and Germany ""favor the continuation of inspections and the substantial strengthening of their human and technical capacities by all possible means,' their joint declaration said. ""There is still an alternative to war. The use of force could only be a last resort.""
