BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 23 -- U.N. and U.S. officials said today that weapons inspectors have not been able to question any Iraqi scientists in private, even though Iraq pledged to encourage such confidential interviews, because the government has not been active enough in urging the scientists to speak without an official monitor present.

The officials, some speaking on condition of anonymity, said inspection leaders believe Iraq may be dissuading scientists from agreeing to confidential interviews despite its public promise to the contrary last Monday. A U.N. official said the inspectors regard their inability to conduct the interviews as "a clear sign of noncooperation" that almost certainly will feature prominently in a report that the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, is scheduled to present to the Security Council on Monday.

Iraq's chief liaison with the inspectors, Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, said his government "did our best to push the scientists" to agree to private interviews, but that all have insisted that government officials be present. He said they refused because they fear that, without an official Iraqi as witness, the inspectors might later distort or manipulate their testimony.

Iraq's promise to encourage confidential questioning had appeared to strengthen the hand of France, Germany, Russia and other council members that support continued inspections rather than a swift finding that Iraq has failed to cooperate. But a report by Blix that President Saddam Hussein's government is not fulfilling its pledge could help the Bush administration forge support for an early determination and eventually a military invasion to oust the Iraqi leader.

The administration, which is deploying tens of thousands of additional troops to the Persian Gulf region in anticipation of a conflict, cited Iraq's failure to get scientists to consent to private interviews to reinforce its argument that Hussein's government is in "material breach" of a Security Council resolution passed Nov. 8 demanding that Iraq extend full cooperation to weapons inspectors and give a complete account of weapons programs.

"Iraq has yet to make a single one of its scientists or technical experts available to be interviewed in confidential circumstances, free of intimidation, as required by the U.N. resolution," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said in an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Wolfowitz said the United States has learned from "multiple sources" that Iraq has "ordered that any scientist who cooperates during interviews will be killed, as well as their families." He said that Iraqi scientists are also "being tutored on what to say to U.N. inspectors and that Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as scientists to be interviewed by the inspectors."

The issue of interviews, along with Iraq's refusal to allow inspectors to employ U-2 surveillance aircraft, could put Blix in the position of criticizing Iraq's level of compliance while arguing that inspections should nonetheless continue. "We regard this as very troubling, but not something that means we should pack up in Baghdad," a U.N. official said.

The inspectors regard interviews with scientists as a crucial investigative tool in determining whether Iraq has, or is developing, weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors want to be able to question the scientists in private because of concerns they might feel intimidated and not speak candidly in the presence of government officials.

"I think we're going to make it a big deal," said a U.N. official, referring to the report on Monday.

Although Iraqi officials have maintained that the scientists are free to choose how they want to be questioned, U.N. officials said the government here effectively dissuaded scientists from consenting to private interviews by getting senior scientists to say publicly that they would never agree to questioning without officials present.

Before Blix arrived in Baghdad for talks on Sunday, his inspectors had asked to speak to six scientists in private, but all refused to do so without an official. After two days of discussions, Blix, director of the U.N. Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission, and Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, announced an agreement with the Iraqi government on 10 procedural issues, the most important of which was that Iraq would start to encourage its scientists to accept private interviews.

After Blix and ElBaradei left, U.N. inspectors asked Iraqi authorities to summon six scientists for interviews. It is not clear whether any or all of them are the same as the six scientists the inspectors sought to query last week.

Amin said his liaison office, the National Monitoring Directorate (NMD), "encouraged our scientists to make the interviews." In one case, he said, inspectors spent one hour trying to persuade a scientist to speak privately.

"No interference took place from my representatives," Amin said. But the scientist, he said, told the inspectors: "I am not ready to make an interview alone in private. I have to be accompanied by NMD representatives."

Amin said the inspectors even asked him to telephone the scientist, who was not named. Although Amin made the call, he said it failed to sway the scientist.

"How can we solve this?" he said. "Should we put him in prison and say to him, 'Make an interview in private?' This is contrary to his human rights. This is unrequired and unnecessary."

The Iraqi government, he said, "has done what it had been asked to do."

"The decision to make the interview belongs to the scientist himself," Amin said. "He will decide if the interview will be conducted or not."

But U.N. officials said they are not convinced the authoritarian government here did enough, noting that it is highly unusual for ordinary citizens, let alone scientists working for the state, to disobey official orders. "If authorities would tell them to go through with these interviews, they would do it," a U.N. official said.

In the agreement that Blix and ElBaradei reached with the Iraqi government, scientists can record their interviews. The questioning also will not occur at the main U.N. building here, but at a private hotel. "There's no reason for scientists to feel threatened," the U.N. official said.

U.N. officials and diplomats here offered various explanations for Iraq's stance. Some suggested that Hussein and other senior leaders have concluded war is inevitable and fear a disclosure by a scientist could strip away some of the sympathy Iraq has tried to build in Europe and the Arab world. Another possibility is that the scientists contacted by the inspectors may possess -- and are willing to share -- incriminating details of banned weapons programs. A third explanation is that Iraq is calculating that a dispute over interviews, even with other claims of Iraqi intransigence, will not be enough to move the Security Council to authorize war.

Amin said he hopes Blix's report will not put a "magnifying glass on disagreement points," such as the failure to reach an understanding on U-2 flights, to which Iraq objects because it fears photographs of its war preparations might be shared with the United States.

On another point, Amin criticized the U.N. commission for conducting what he said was an inspection of a recently built Baghdad mosque on Monday without government escorts. A U.N. spokesman said a small group of inspectors visited the Al-Nida mosque as tourists, but Amin said he does not believe that explanation.

Staff writer Colum Lynch in New York contributed to this report.