U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday there was no argument for a U.S.-led military strike against Iraq before U.N. weapons inspectors present their report in late January. Speaking after the United Nations approved tougher sanctions to prevent Baghdad from importing goods which could be used in war, Annan said Iraq was cooperating with inspections demanded by the Security Council.

He said he saw no need for military action until the inspectors searching for suspected weapons of mass destruction report back to the council, probably on January 27.

"Iraq is cooperating and they (inspectors) are able to do their work in an unimpeded manner and therefore I don't see an argument for a military action now," Annan said in an interview with Israel's Army Radio monitored in Jerusalem.

"They may give an interim report before the 27th and I really do not see any basis for an action until then, particularly as they are able to carry out their work in an unimpeded manner."

U.N. arms experts swooped on at least eight suspect sites in central Iraq Tuesday, pushing ahead despite the new year.

Among the sites visited, witnesses said a team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) drove to a military base in Fallujah, northwest of Baghdad. They said the facility is used to train officers in chemical warfare.

"WORK OF GANGS"

Despite Annan's insistence that inspections were proceeding smoothly, the chief of a missile facility which was scrutinized by inspectors Monday accused them of behaving like gangsters.

"A team of 25 inspectors stormed into the plant...in a way never seen before and in a manner similar to the work of gangs," director of the facility Mohammad Hussein told reporters.

The United States has declared Baghdad in material breach of a Security Council resolution passed in November giving Iraq one last chance to disarm. Baghdad says it has no banned weapons.

Monday, the United States won approval for a new Security Council resolution, co-sponsored by Britain, which named goods such as drugs, trucks and boats that cannot be imported by Iraq without prior approval.

The 15-nation council voted 13-0 to expand the list of civilian goods under sanctions. Russia and Syria abstained.

Iraqi envoy Mohammed S. Ali said the resolution would aggravate the suffering of the Iraq people, which could be eased only by a lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait.

The resolution modified a 300-page "goods review list" itemizing goods that Iraq is barred from importing without first obtaining Security Council approval on a case-by-case basis.

Additions to the list range from drugs to protect Iraqi soldiers from both anthrax and poison gas to boats similar to the one used in the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago. Electronic gear that could jam global positioning systems used to guide some U.S. smart bombs will also come under review.

PRICE TO PAY

The New York Times reported Tuesday that White House Budget Director Mitchell Daniels estimated the cost of a war with Iraq at from 50 billion dlrs to 60 billion dlrs, well below earlier estimates from other administration officials.

A spokesperson for Daniels disputed the report, saying the budget director was referring to the cost of the 1991 Gulf War rather than projecting the cost of a potential war with Iraq.

Daniels, in a telephone interview with the paper, would not provide specific costs for either a long or a short military campaign to oust President Saddam Hussein . But he said that the administration was budgeting for both, the article said.

"This is nothing more than prudent contingency planning," Daniels was quoted as saying. "At this point there is no war."
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, providing the logic for a possible reversal in his strong anti-war stance, said that force was sometimes needed against dictators.

"We Germans know from our own experience that sometimes only violence can stop dictators," Schroeder said in his New Year's televised address to the nation. "But we also know what bombs, destruction and losses at home mean for people."

The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that U.S. and British aircraft used precision-guided weapons to target Iraqi air defense targets in strikes Monday.

It was the fourth day in five that Western aircraft attacked Iraqi targets in the southern no-fly zone.

PHOTO CAPTION

Two UNMOVIC inspectors look at barrels as they through stacked barrels at the Oil Research and Development Center east of Baghdad on Tuesday Dec. 31, 2002. U.N. arms inspectors fanned out Tuesday to eight sites suspected of involvement in the making of banned weapons, as an Iraqi Cabinet minister warned the United States of 'the heaviest losses' if it attacks. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser