On the second day of the hunt for illicit weapons in Iraq, UN inspectors again found Iraqi officials well-prepared for their ”surprise” visits.
In response to fears that the inspectors’ Baghdad headquarters may be bugged, UN sources said yesterday that the building will be checked with sweeping devices over the weekend.
”The problem is that nobody knows if the facility is compromised,” the source said.
One team — which included at least six biological experts — was immediately allowed into a laboratory at al-Dawrah on the outskirts of Baghdad, while another quickly gained admission to a munitions factory at Taji, north of the capital.
On Wednesday, a UN team found factory management waiting to greet them at the military-industrial Tahidi plant.
The inspectors have been anxious to keep their destinations secret to avoid giving the Iraqis time to remove anything from the suspect sites as in previous inspections in the 1990s.
Iraqi officials say this time their readiness is a sign of co-operation and that sites likely to be inspected have been told to stand by for a visit.
At al-Dawrah, the inspectors also looked well-prepared, ticking off items on clipboards as they looked over tanks, pipes and other fixtures.
Steel doors were opened in small, concrete-block outbuildings and one inspector, wearing jeans, climbed to the top of a six metre tank, peered inside and nodded to a colleague below. The team then disappeared from view and left after four hours.
The site, officially known as the Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Production Laboratory, produced botulinum toxin — which kills by paralysis and suffocation — in the 1980s, but during previous inspections the UN destroyed much of its equipment.
After yesterday’s inspection Iraqi officials allowed journalists into the site.
”It is good cooperation,” the former director, Montasser Omar Abdel Aziz, said. He added that the inspectors had taken swabs from an air filtration system, tanks and other fixtures.
Asked why the UN might suspect illicit activities at al-Dawrah, he replied: ”You can see, enter inside and see … Nobody can do anything here.”
The darkened rooms of the compound’s main building were strewn with mangled equipment, piles of paper, boxes of dusty books and other debris.
A second team of inspectors yesterday went to the industry ministry’s al-Nasr (”Victory”) complex at Taji.
Iraqi guards stood at the entrance of the large site where a large picture of Saddam Hussein rose over the main gate. A UN helicopter hovered overhead as the inspectors began work inside.
In the past, al-Nasr produced ”special munitions”, particularly bombs that were believed to hold chemical agents.
The complex also formerly extended the range of Scud missiles imported from the former Soviet Union.
The director of the ammunition plant told reporters that its work was legitimate and did not breach any UN resolutions.
Both sites inspected yesterday had been mentioned by the United States in recent months as suspected of producing banned weapons.
UN inspectors pulled out of Baghdad in 1998 after seven years’ effort to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and to remove its capacity to make them.
A series of clashes with Iraqi officials culminated in a row over the inspection of ”presidential sites” — which Iraq viewed as an infringement of its sovereignty.
This time, armed with the implicit threat of an American-led invasion if President Saddam fails to cooperate, the inspectors say they will tolerate no prevarication.
There are currently 17 inspectors in Baghdad, though their number is expected to reach 100 around Christmas. – Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001