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BAGHDAD/UNITED NATIONS, Tuesday (Reuters) United Nations weapons inspectors began a crucial mission in Iraq and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Baghdad the only way to avoid war was to cooperate with them.

Looking for nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, the group of inspectors were due on Wednesday to begin their first search for four years in Iraq, which U.S. President George W. Bush has threatened with war if it does not disarm.

"I hope the government of Iraq will fully cooperate with the inspectors and respect its obligations unreservedly. That is the only way to avoid conflict in the region," Annan told a news conference in Paris.Reflecting the Bush Administration's hard-line against Iraq, the United States forced the U.N. Security Council on Monday night to delay for nine days the Iraq oil-for-food plan, which is usually renewed for six-month periods, to give council members more time to negotiate.

The plan allows Iraq to sell oil and covers food, medicine and a host of civilian supplies to ease the impact of U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The United States wants only a three-month renewal and has linked the plan to expanding a U.N. list of items that have dual military and civilian uses. Among the goods Washington wants banned are atropine injectors and the large quantities of the drug atropine, which can be used to combat nerve gases.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair also warned President Saddam Hussein not to play a game of "hide and seek" in the hunt for illicit armaments -- a search that arose from the cease-fire accord in the 1991 Gulf War. The U.N. Security Council on Nov. 8 adopted a tough new resolution giving Iraq one more chance to disarm.

"We have no doubt that he does have weapons of mass destruction," Blair, who has been Bush's staunchest supporter of Bush's stance on Iraq, told a news conference in London.

"So let's wait and see what he actually says. But I've made it clear throughout, this has got to be a situation in which there is an honest declaration by Saddam."

Blair said a false declaration would constitute a "material breach" of the Nov. 8 resolution 1441 but that it was up to the weapons inspectors to pass judgment. In contrast, the Bush administration has indicated it could make the decision, without input from the inspectors, and then prepare for war. 

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