BAGHDAD/NEW YORK, 9 January 2003 — UN arms experts started a seventh week of searching for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction yesterday as the United States and Britain accelerated a military buildup in preparation for a possible war. For the third day in a row, Baghdad accused the inspectors of spying, with Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz charging that "a great deal of their work" was "not to search for weapons of mass destruction."
"They are searching for other information, information about the Iraqi conventional military capability, information about the Iraqi scientific and industrial capability in the civilian area, and also espionage questions," he told a delegation of South African anti-war activists.
Aziz was echoing accusations leveled on both Monday and Tuesday by President Saddam Hussein, who said the arms experts were, under US pressure, going beyond their mandate and engaging in "intelligence activity."
But according to the UN spokesman in Baghdad, Iraq has continued to cooperate with the inspectors. "No, none of our chief inspectors has reported any change in the Iraqis’ attitude," Hiro Ueki said on Tuesday, again rejecting the spying charge.
At the United Nations, Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, will today underline that a declaration by Iraq of its activities in producing weapons of mass destruction lacks credible new information. But in a meeting with the Security Council, he is unlikely to reveal any smoking guns sufficient to trigger an early war.
There is still nothing to indicate that the inspectors deployed in Iraq by Blix and his counterpart at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed El-Baradei, have yet found any evidence to back claims by Washington and London that Iraq is hiding lethal weapons programs. Both men are due to travel to Baghdad next week to meet with senior Iraqi officials and to review the progress of the inspections.
Five teams were at work in Iraq yesterday, the 40th day of arms inspections since they resumed on Nov. 27 after a four-year break, Information Ministry officials said in Baghdad. Nuclear experts toured three cement works in the southern cities of Samawa, Kufa and Kerbala. In Baghdad, a chemical team visited the Al-Tariq company and a biological team inspected the medical faculty of Saddam University.
Missile specialists visited the Al-Mamun factory near Al-Qaa Qaa, some 30 kilometers south of the capital, and a combined team visited a pharmaceutical plant near the northern town of Mosul, the officials said.
Warplanes from a US-British coalition bombed Iraqi air defense communications sites in southern Iraq yesterday in response to violations of a no-fly zone, the US military said. The strike targeted cable repeater facilities between the southern towns of Al Kut, Basra and An-Nasiriyah, the US Central Command said in a statement in Washington. It was launched at 1000 GMT after coalition aircraft came under anti-aircraft fire. (The Independent)
