CAIRO, March 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iraq's number two Ezzat Ibrahim met in Cairo Thursday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, following an earlier visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Ibrahim left Cairo after a lightning visit and around 40 minutes of talks with Mubarak, after which no statement was issued.

Mubarak was to have informed Ibrahim of the results of his talks with Cheney Wednesday, March 13, in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, according to an Egyptian presidential source, AFP reported.

The Egyptian leader said after meeting Cheney that he was confident Iraq's President Saddam Hussein would allow the return of U.N. arms inspectors, thus heading off a crisis with the United States.

"I think, as far as my knowledge is, he's going to accept the inspectors," Mubarak told a press conference.

Ibrahim, who is vice president of Iraq's decision-making Revolutionary Command Council, is on a regional swing coinciding with an Arab tour by Cheney focused on rallying support for the upcoming U.S. strike on Iraq.

So far, Ibrahim has visited Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. He said Wednesday in Beirut that a threat against Iraq amounted to a threat "against the whole Arab nation."

During his stop in Sharm el-Sheikh, Cheney said "our next objective is to prevent terrorists, and regimes that sponsor terror, from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction".

Egypt has repeatedly voiced opposition to U.S. military action against Iraq, which Washington accuses of seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction in the absence of international arms inspectors.

Mubarak said Wednesday that Egypt believed that every possible effort should be exerted to implement relevant U.N. resolutions without inflicting more sufferings on the Iraqi people.

"On the other hand, it is of great importance to maintain the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq. This is a must for preserving stability in the region," Mubarak said at a joint press conference with Cheney after talks at Sharm el Sheikh.

Mubarak stressed that Egypt was trying hard to let Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accept U.N. arms inspectors.

"I think that as far as my knowledge is concerned, Saddam is going to accept the inspectors," Mubarak said.

Iraq has been defying the U.S. demand for the return of U.N. arms inspectors, who withdrew from Iraq on the eve of the U.S.- British air strike in December 1998 and have not been allowed back since then.

U.S. President George W. Bush has demanded that the Iraqi regime allow the arms inspectors back or face serious consequences.

Not long after Mubarak spoke, Bush voiced "deep concern" about Iraq, saying Saddam Hussein is a “problem” and “we are going to deal with him”, BBC’s online news service reported.

"I will not allow a nation such as Iraq to threaten our very future by developing weapons of mass destruction," he said, adding that Vice President Dick Cheney was touring Arab nations "reminding people of this danger".

"This is a nation run by a man who is willing to kill his own people by using chemical weapons, a man who won't let inspectors into the country, a man who's obviously got something to hide," Bush told reporters in Washington.

The U.N. Special Commission on Disarmament (UNSCOM), branded a "nest of spies" by Saddam, concluded that the Baghdad regime had repeatedly lied and failed to come anywhere near clean on its huge arsenal.

But Iraq, battling to hold on to its sovereignty, gained some support as evidence emerged of collusion between some inspectors and the United States and Israel.

Even Hans Blix, head of a new arms inspection body waiting in the wings -- the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), felt moved this month to say his team would not be spies for anyone.

UNSCOM claimed Baghdad failed to reveal the full extent of its ability to produce missiles with a range of more than 150 kilometers (90 miles) and suspected that it had failed to destroy all such weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency found no evidence by late 1998 that Iraq had produced nuclear weapons, despite a major nuclear weapons program, or was capable of producing such weapons.

However, UNSCOM confessed it failed to account for Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs.

Inspectors believed Baghdad had filled missile warheads with deadly VX gas and failed to account for 200 tons of precursor chemicals for producing VX. Iraq denied arming warheads but admitted producing 3.9 tones of VX.

The commission concluded that information provided by Iraq on production, militarization and destruction of biological weapons could not be credible and could not be verified.

"The area of bacteriological weapons is the one which poses the most serious questions," said Blix, who noted the "the situation on the ground [in Iraq] could have changed," in the absence of inspectors.

"Other question marks have been added to the question marks which existed in 1998 and still exist," he said, insisting on surprise inspections and unrestricted access in Iraq, the old cause of conflict.

UNMOVIC has a list of hundreds of sites it would like to visit in Iraq, he added.

Former United Nations weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, has notably called for an end to sanctions imposed on Iraq, saying he did not feel the country posed a danger any longer.

He accused the United States of deliberately provoking confrontations with Iraq, which, he says, was almost fully disarmed by 1995.

Ritter said the United States undermined the work of UNSCOM, the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq, and used the issue to push Iraq towards conflict with the West, according to BBC’s online news service.

Ritter said his team was satisfied Iraq had destroyed 98% of its weapons by 1995.

But the U.S. Government deliberately set new standards of disarmament criteria to maintain U.N. sanctions against Baghdad and justify bombing raids, he added.

In his documentary film, ‘In Shifting Sands: The Truth About UNSCOM and the Disarming of Iraq’, which was premiered at the United Nations, Ritter said UNSCOM chief Richard Butler told his inspectors: "You have to provoke a confrontation...so the U.S. can start bombing" before 15 March, a Muslim holy period, BBC added.

Ritter, an ex-U.S. marine intelligence officer, said Iraq "did co-operate to a very significant degree with the U.N. inspection process" and he blamed the United States for the eventual breakdown of the initial purposes for the inspections.

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