Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed news that the head of the U.N. weapons inspection team was invited for talks in Baghdad by Iraq, deemed by President Bush as part of an "axis of evil."

The invitation from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri was delivered to weapons inspector Hans Blix by way of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. "There is no need for further clarification or discussion. The approach is clear," Powell said. He said the issue is not so much inspections but "making sure that the Iraqis have no weapons of mass destruction." Iraq agreed to dispose of such weapons as part of an agreement to end the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Saddam Hussein stopped Iraq's cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors in 1998, and the inspectors left in December just before the United States and Britain launched a punitive attack by warplanes and cruise missiles. Iraq has not allowed the inspectors back since. Iraq began signaling an interest in permitting the inspectors to return after Bush said in January that Iraq was part of the "axis of evil" along with Iran and North Korea. But the administration has seen these overtures as Iraq's way of buying time.