ONDON, Sept. 27 — The Bush administration has drafted a stringent plan for arms inspections that provides for unrestricted access to all sites in Iraq, including Saddam Hussein's presidential compounds and palaces, and authorizes the use of military force if Baghdad interferes, according to European and American officials.
The essence of the plan, which American and British officials are presenting to France, Russia and China, the other veto-bearing members of the United Nations Security Council, is to declare that Iraq is already violating its obligations to the United Nations and to put the onus on Saddam Hussein to comply.
Under the terms of the draft resolution, Iraq would be required to provide a full account of its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction before the inspectors returned.
Mr. Hussein has a seven-day deadline to accept the resolution and declare all of his programs of weapons of mass destruction, and a further 23 days to open up the sites concerned and provide all documents to support the declaration, an American official said.
Inspections would be intrusive, possibly with military guards, and could occur at any site in Iraq. Limitations that the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, agreed to in 1998 on inspections of Iraq's eight presidential sites would be repealed.
If Baghdad failed to comply with the inspection demands — by failing to provide a full or accurate list, for example — the draft resolution calls for "all necessary means to restore international peace and security," a diplomatic euphemism for American and British military action to remove Mr. Hussein from power.
But the Bush administration's resolution ran into stiff resistance today from France, which has balked at Washington's insistence that the resolution pave the way for an American military campaign if Mr. Hussein refuses to cooperate. China and Russia also signaled strong objections.
President Bush called President Jacques Chirac of France today to lobby for the American measure. Marc Grossman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, and Britain's Foreign Office political director, Peter Ricketts, flew to Paris to seek French support.
But Mr. Chirac stuck to his position that the initial Security Council resolution should deal with inspections and that the issue of military action should be deferred.
Indeed, the French appeared to be mounting a lobbying effort of their own to counter the Americans. Mr. Chirac met Thursday with the Chinese premier, Zhu Rongji, who is visiting Europe to speak with business leaders. Later Thursday, Mr. Chirac called President Vladimir V. Putin to lobby for Russian support.
Mr. Zhu was shown on French television saying that "if the weapons inspections did not take place, if we do not have clear proof and if we do not have the authorization of the Security Council, we cannot launch a military attack on Iraq — otherwise, there would be incalculable consequences."
Mr. Grossman and Mr. Ricketts are due in Moscow on Saturday to try to secure Russia's backing. But Russia's foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, today sharply reiterated Russian opposition to the use of force in Iraq. His words echoed those of Mr. Putin, who on Thursday called for a diplomatic solution on the basis of existing Security Council resolutions.
The resolution drafted by the United States in conjunction with Britain has not been made public. But allied and American officials said the draft resolution outlined a detailed and stringent inspection plan in three and a half single-space typed pages.
According to the officials familiar with the document, the draft resolution asserts in its initial paragraph that Iraq is already guilty of a "material breach" of past United Nations resolutions because of its work on weapons of mass destruction and its effort to frustrate the work of inspectors, among other issues. Inspectors were last in Iraq in late 1998, when they were withdrawn prior to an American and British bombing campaign to punish Iraq for past violations.
Echoing President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, the draft resolution says that Iraq has been violating a range of United Nations resolutions for years.
The officials familiar with the draft document said that as a first step toward disarmament, Iraq would be obliged to present a full report on its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction before the inspectors returned. The report would have to include work on the L-29 drone aircraft. Iraq has refurbished the jet trainer, which it acquired from Eastern Europe, and American officials suspect it has been modified to deliver biological and chemical weapons.
"If we find anything in what they give us that is not true, that is the trigger," an American official said. "If they delay, obstruct or lie about anything they disclosed, then this will trigger action."
Assuming that Iraq met the timetable outlined in the draft, United Nations inspectors would begin their work with completely unrestricted access.
The draft resolution defines this as "free, unrestricted and immediate movement to and from inspection sites and the right to inspect any sites and buildings," according to an official familiar with the draft.
The draft also stipulates that the United States and the four other permanent members of the Security Council would have the right to send representatives along with the inspection teams. An allied official said that those five nations could also pick sites to be inspected and ask for reports on inspections of those sites.
Significantly, the resolution specifically overrides provisions of Resolution 1154, which Mr. Annan worked out in 1998 to resolve a dispute with Iraq over access to presidential sites. Resolution 1154 required the inspectors to notify Iraq before inspecting presidential sites and to conduct the inspections in the company of diplomats. There are eight such sites in Iraq, covering about 11.5 square miles of territory.
In contrast, the draft American resolution insists on "unrestricted access to presidential sites notwithstanding 1154," said an official who had read the draft.
Military guards provided by the United Nations or allied forces would be allowed to protect the inspectors' base camp in Iraq and transit routes. The draft resolution also outlines procedures for taking scientists and other witnesses out of Iraq so that they can provide information about Mr. Hussein's weapons programs.
Some proliferation experts welcomed the tough American resolution.
"The requirement for a full declaration is very good," said Gary Samore, a senior fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior aide on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council. "It really puts the Iraqis on the spot. If Iraq denies having any weapons of mass destruction capability at all, it means that anything the inspectors find demonstrates that they are not complying. If they are forced to declare some part of their arsenal, it is an important step toward disarmament."
But the American and British resolution is only a draft and it remains to be seen what will emerge from the diplomatic wrangling with Paris, Moscow and Beijing. One American official estimated that it would be several more weeks before a Security Council resolution was finally worked out.
One European diplomat, who is critical of the American approach, asserted that it had been designed to fail. "The Americans are not really interested in having the inspectors go back in. This is not a resolution for inspections. It is a declaration of war."
But an American official insisted that an entirely new approach was needed. "We are asking him to come clean," the American official said of Mr. Hussein.
Iraq has said that it is willing to allow weapons inspectors to return without conditions. But it is far from clear that it is prepared to allow the wide-ranging inspections envisioned by the draft American and British resolution. Iraq, for example, may be calculating that the resumption of inspections will be based on the 1998 understanding with Mr. Annan putting limits on inspections at presidential sites.
An American official said that Washington hoped that the new resolution would essentially replace all prior resolutions on Iraq since 1991.
"Don't think in terms of other resolutions," the official said. "This one will stand alone and have everything Iraq has to give us."