UN arms experts visit former missile parts factory

UN weapons inspectors in Iraq today visited a factory that made missile components and an alcohol plant on the outskirts of the capital Baghdad.

The monitors are searching for evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is still committed to programmes developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons – alcohol is a common component of many chemical weapons.

The missile parts factory made guidance and control systems for “stretch Scuds,” Soviet-made missiles that the Iraqis modified to longer range and used in the 1991 Gulf War.

Such long range missiles – 400 miles – are now prohibited for Iraq, and the inspectors presumably wanted to ensure work had not resumed.

US President George Bush has warned that Saddam faces “severe consequences” if the monitors are not satisfied.

During yesterday’s inspections, the UN experts showed up at airfield 20 miles north of Baghdad. Five UN vehicles entered the site along with several cars of the National Monitoring Directorate, the Iraqi body that deals with the inspectors.

One of the UN vehicles with two inspectors inside parked at the gate to make sure no one left or entered the compound -including the director of the site, Montadhar Radeef Mohammed.

“I was surprised because I wasn’t here,” Mohammed said. ”I was also surprised that they didn’t allow me to enter until they got permission. I wasn’t aware of the visit.”

The inspectors have routinely sealed sites during their searches.

The Security Council resolution that sent the weapons inspectors back empowered them to go anywhere at any time to determine whether Iraq is still harbouring banned weapons.

Once he got permission to enter his own base, Mohammed was asked in detail about the activities of the airfield.

Mohammed said the team took samples from storage tanks and copied some of the computer files.

Inspectors could be seen by journalists checking pesticide tanks for possible chemical or biological agents. An inspector was seen filming tanks that are usually filled with pesticides and carried by helicopters.

After spending 4 hours at the site, the inspectors left without saying anything to reporters about the day’s mission.

Once the inspectors left, the Iraqis opened the gate and asked journalists to come in and look around for themselves.

“We showed them everything. They opened all the doors, we showed them all the rooms,” Mohammed said, insisting that the base has no stores of chemical or biological agents.

The United States has threatened to disarm Iraq – alone if necessary – if Baghdad holds back any information or fails to cooperate with the UN inspectors.

The UN resolution requires that Iraq give up all weapons of mass destruction. The work of previous inspectors in the 1990s after the Gulf War led to the destruction of many tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and the equipment to make them and dismantling of Iraq’s nuclear bomb programme.

That inspections regime collapsed in 1998 amid disputes over access to sites and Iraqi complaints that US spies were among the UN inspectors. Those inspectors believed they were unable to find and destroy all of Iraq’s illegal weapons.

Among the weapons systems still unaccounted for are the toxic-spraying Zubaidy devices believed once tested at the airfield visited yesterday. In 1998, inspectors said at least 12 of the devices were built but there was no record of any of them being destroyed.