BAGHDAD Iraq could allow UN weapons inspectors back into the sanctions-hit country if their mission was subject to a precise timetable, an Iraqi newspaper said Monday.

"One of the main reasons for our opposition to the return of inspectors is because the Americans want them to remain indefinitely, which means continuing the unfair embargo," said *** Babel ***, run by President Saddam Hussein's elder son, Uday.

UN arms inspectors pulled out of Iraq in December 1998 amid deadlock with Baghdad. Their withdrawal was followed by a U.S. and British bombing blitz.

The United States, backed by Britain, has dropped broad hints that it will take military action against Iraq unless inspectors are allowed back into the country to check that Baghdad no longer has weapons of mass destruction.

The international community regularly accuses Iraq of hiding or developing such weapons, while Baghdad has insisted several times since the 1991 Persian Gulf War that it has destroyed them.

"If the U.S. administration and its acolyte Britain were sincere, they would have laid out a timetable for the inspectors' mission, followed by a lifting of the embargo" imposed on Iraq for invading Kuwait in 1990, ** Babel ** said.

"The U.S. administration is determined to attack us whether we authorize the return of inspectors or not," it charged, adding that Iraq had no choice but to "confront the evil by preparing to defend itself."

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, in an interview with the French newspaper ** Le Figaro ** published Monday, reiterated his opposition to the return of UN weapons inspectors, asserting that Iraq was "today 100 percent clean."

"It is out of the question that we would choose a surrender as the only way to survive," AFP quoted Aziz. "Iraq has no other option but to defend itself."