U.N. Accepts Iraq Plan to End Crisis : Nuclear arms: U.N. inspectors will give Baghdad an inventory of seized materials. But a new snag could develop on inspection flights by helicopters.

UNITED NATIONS —  The Security Council, determined to end a dangerous, three-day confrontation peacefully, accepted Iraq’s proposal Thursday that besieged U.N. inspectors in Baghdad furnish an inventory before carting away documents, videotape and film from the grounds of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.

The agreement--which French Ambassador Jean-Bernard Merimee, the council president, refused to call a “compromise”--could bring the frustrating crisis to a close before the weekend.

The United States canceled an order dispatching four attack helicopters from Okinawa to Saudi Arabia to escort flights over Iraq by U.N. inspectors, apparently in response to an Iraqi agreement to permit unrestricted U.N. inspection flights.

President Bush was asked at a state dinner Thursday evening whether this means the United States is cutting back planning and preparation for possible military action against Iraq.

“We haven’t changed any plans,” Bush said.

Bush, who said “I’m a little skeptical” about Iraq’s apparent agreement to permit U.N. inspection flights, added: “We’re prepared to do whatever it takes to enforce the (U.N.) resolutions.”

Earlier, a new snag seemed to develop over the aerial-inspection issue that most Security Council members had thought was settled a few days ago.

A letter from Iraq reached the United Nations, insisting that no copters would be allowed to fly until Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish diplomat who heads the special commission charged with ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, shows up in Baghdad to reach an agreement with Iraqi officials about arrangements for flying the helicopters.

Despite the ominous tone of this declaration, Ekeus and Security Council members said they would ignore it. They said Ekeus had sent two letters to the Iraqis earlier in the day setting down the United Nations’ proposed arrangements for flying the craft and for preparing the inventory of documents and other materials. Since the letters had crossed, the U.N. officials said, there was no reason to reply to the Iraqi letter.

Ekeus, who has said he expected the Iraqis to accept his proposed arrangements, told reporters, “If I have a deal, why should I go” to Baghdad?

But there was no certainty that the United Nations really had a deal with Iraq, and British Ambassador David Hannay obviously reflected some Security Council doubts when he told reporters, “I’ve long since given up being puzzled by what the Iraqis do.”

Emphasizing that the Iraqis had already sent a declaration to the Security Council accepting U.N. authority to fly its choppers throughout Iraq, Hannay said, “If they cast doubt on that agreement, they will take very serious risks.”

On the issue of the besieged inspectors, Ekeus said that the 44-member team, most of them Americans, could catalogue the seized items in the presence of Iraqi officials in less than 24 hours. But Ekeus stressed that he needed Iraqi acceptance of his proposed arrangements before the inspectors in Baghdad, led by David A. Kay, a Texas-born political scientist, would be signaled to start the inventory.

Meanwhile, the inspectors settled down to sleeping in their cars and buses for the third straight night under the watch of armed Iraqi guards after a day in which anti-American demonstrators marched through the university in Baghdad chanting “Bush, Bush, listen to us: We love (President) Saddam Hussein” and “Live, live Saddam Hussein; down, down Bush.”

Despite the diplomatic maneuvering at the United Nations, Kay, who has spoken to many journalists via a mobile phone, said the atmosphere in the parking lot on the grounds of the building had not changed. There was no sign that the Iraqi guards had relaxed their vigilance or had received any orders to prepare for the release of the inspectors.

All the seized items--regarded as essential evidence of the extent of Iraq’s past program of nuclear weapons development--were kept in a single car. “Our people are sleeping on the material,” Ekeus said in New York. “They cannot leave it because someone would take it. It’s part of their whole existential situation.”

The White House, which has been hinting for the last two weeks of renewed military action if Iraq persisted with its continual attempts to harass the inspectors, appeared ready to let the United Nations try to defuse the tension.

Asked about the Iraqi-proposed inventory agreement, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said simply, “The U.N. has to determine if that’s satisfactory or not.” But Fitzwater did not hide the Administration’s frustration at what he called Hussein’s persistent attempts to defy and cheat the U.N. and then back down at the last moment.

After angering the United Nations with its defiance, the Iraqi government sent a letter to the Security Council on Wednesday night saying it would let the inspectors leave with the documents, if they prepared an inventory with Iraqi officials and provided that Ekeus flew to Baghdad to discuss Kay, whom Baghdad has accused of being a CIA spy.

After a closed-door session, the Security Council, Merimee said, decided to send a letter to the Iraqi government accepting the inventory proposal. He called it “a solution which will be satisfactory to the council.”

But Ekeus told reporters that he has no intention of going to Baghdad until all the difficulties are ironed out. Without detailing the arrangements described in his letters, he said, “We expect Iraq to say yes to them.”

Iraq’s original refusal to allow the helicopters to fly unrestricted throughout Iraq had led to an earlier confrontation with the Security Council and to threats from President Bush about possible military action. But, in a letter to the Security Council on Tuesday, Iraq backed down.

Ekeus said his commission had planned to test the new agreement Sunday, when another inspection team is to arrive in Baghdad. But, he added, he would not send another team to Iraq until the Iraqis ended their siege of his inspectors in the parking lot.

Ekeus stressed that the problem is complex and there could be future pitfalls, if the United Nations is not careful now. “Our arrangements here will influence our inspections in the future,” he said.

Kay and his inspection team--27 Americans, five Canadians, three New Zealanders, two Australians, two Germans, two Britons, an Egyptian, a Moroccan and a Syrian--infuriated the Iraqis on Monday when they staged a surprise dawn raid on another building in Baghdad to uncover a cache of documents that provided the strongest evidence so far of Iraq’s past plans to manufacture nuclear weapons.

After a confrontation in Baghdad and some harsh words from the Security Council in New York, the Iraqis, who had confiscated the materials from the inspectors, finally gave the bulk of the papers back. The inspectors then raided the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission building Tuesday, refusing this time to give up materials to the armed Iraqi guards.

Kay, chief evaluation officer of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, has been chatting often by phone with reporters.

NEW THREAT TO KURDS: Iraq has moved up to half its army into Kurdish regions. A7