Weapons inspectors land in Iraq

The first team of UN inspectors landed in Iraq today to take up the hunt for chemical, biological or nuclear arms programs, a search whose outcome could help determine the future of peace in the Middle East.

A white C-130 transport, emblazoned with a simple UN logo, touched down at Baghdad’s Saddam International Airport carrying a contingent of 18 international arms monitors and their cargo of high-tech sensors, computers and other gear.

They had assembled earlier at a US base on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

The team comprised of six nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and 12 inspectors from the UN commission charged with searching for other weapons of mass destruction.

After a four year suspension, their crucial new round of surprise inspections will begin on Wednesday morning, when they will likely revisit an unidentified Iraqi site previously inspected in the 1990s. Among other things, they may check on cameras and other monitoring equipment left behind by earlier inspectors.

Later, the inspectors will branch out to new or rebuilt sites – including, for example, suspected storage places for chemical weapons US intelligence alleges are still held by Iraq.

“We have the right to inspect any sites at any time,” said Hiro Ueki, Baghdad spokesman for the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC.

The secrecy of the inspection plans is paramount. “If you were the head coach of an American football team, I don’t think you’d reveal your strategy,” Ueki said.

The UN inspectors include 300 chemists, biologists, missile and ordnance experts and other specialists of UNMOVIC, and a few dozen engineers and physicists of the UN nuclear agency.

Between 80 and 100 will be working in Iraq at any one time.