UN arms inspectors complete first mission in Iraq

9.30am

BAGHDAD - United Nations arms inspectors headed out of Baghdad on their first missions in four years today, meeting no resistance from Iraqi officials to their search for illicit weaponry.

Armed with a new UN mandate and the implicit threat of a US invasion if President Saddam Hussein fails to cooperate, the inspectors visited three sites outside the capital, tailed by hordes of international journalists in long convoys of cars.

"We were able to carry out the activities that we had planned to carry out," Dimitri Perricos, leader of the UNMOVIC UN monitoring team told reporters afterwards. "You witnessed the immediateness of the access and that's a good sign."

Inspectors pulled out in 1998 after seven years checking Iraq had disarmed after the 1991 Gulf War. They complained of a lack of access and suggested evidence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and missiles was being cleared out of suspect plants while inspectors argued with guards on the gates.

This time, under Security Council Resolution 1441, they will brook no such prevarication, even at sprawling "presidential" compounds that Saddam previously demanded should be off-limits.

There was little delay today when inspectors in eight white UN jeeps, escorted by Iraqi officials and followed by about 50 media vehicles, arrived at the military-guarded al-Tahadi (Challenge) plant, 20km east of Baghdad.

The biggest bother for the inspectors -- and Baghdad motorists caught in the jam -- appeared to be the pursuing media circus as reporters rushed to inform a world audience, anxious that a new failure for the inspection regime could trigger war.

Two media cars collided and some inspectors briefly lost their way, unwilling to ask their Iraqi minders for directions for fear of losing the element of surprise on their visit.

At the Tahadi plant, guards kept curious reporters outside at the gate, where a portrait of the president stood with the slogan "God Preserve Iraq and Saddam".

The inspectors later said they visited a missile facility near Baghdad -- Iraq is allowed to possess short-range rockets -- though it was not clear which plant they were referring to.

They said a second team visited a graphite facility. In addition to the Tahadi plant, witnesses saw inspectors go to the Saddam general headquarters, a small industrial complex near Ramadi, 140km northwest of Baghdad, and later to a graphite compound near Ammriyyeh, 45km to the west.

Today's missions seemed low-key. Former chief weapons inspector Richard Butler said they may simply have been checking data from previous monitoring. He told CNN from Sydney the real test would come when they turned up at more sensitive sites.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reminded Iraqis they faced serious consequences if the do not cooperate.

"I don't think war is inevitable," Annan told Europe 1 radio on a visit to Paris. "But if...Iraq continues to create problems and the inspectors feel they cannot do their job, then the Security Council will look at what to do."

Though Annan said that inspections could take a year to complete, potential crises could come much sooner, though not, it seems likely, without dividing international opinion.

The November 8 resolution gives Iraq until December 8 to make a full declaration of its arsenal. State-controlled media today repeated Baghdad's denial that any exists.

But given Washington's conviction to the contrary and President George W. Bush's stated willingness to ensure defiance of the United Nations does not go unpunished, it is not clear what may happen if Iraq sticks to its denial in 10 days time.

Bush has warned that Saddam will be entering his "final stage" in that case. He has been reinforcing US forces in the Gulf for a possible attack and top commanders are in the region this Thanksgiving week to visit troops.

Air raid sirens sounded over Baghdad on Wednesday morning, followed by the all-clear some 10 minutes later. An Iraqi civil defence official said Western planes flew over the capital. But the United States and Britain, whose air forces patrol "no-fly" zones to the north and south, denied approaching the city.

It took months of diplomatic wrangling at the United Nations to produce this month's unanimous Security Council resolution and major powers remain at odds over how tough to get with Iraq.

Russia and France, in particular, have potentially valuable oil and other economic interests in Iraq and have led resistance to using force. Arab officials warn an attack on Iraq would hurt support in the region for Bush's "war on terrorism".

The inspectors must report to the Security Council by January 27. Even without evidence to the contrary by then, it will be hard for them to endorse Baghdad's protestations of innocence without many months of checks by about 100 experts.

Yet military experts say any US action in the region would be much easier in the relative cool of winter.

Ordinary Iraqis, struggling with the poverty that sanctions have brought to a nation with enormous oil reserves, said they doubted the inspections could avert an American attack.

"America will do whatever it wants, even if the result of the searches is positive," Umaila Noureddine, a 23-year-old computer programmer, said in Baghdad.

But Annan stressed that Iraq could finally come out from under the sanctions imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait if it cooperated. And the Russian Foreign Ministry welcomed the inspections saying they could lead to the end of the embargoes.

In New York on Tuesday, there was disagreement between Washington and other Security Council members over Iraq's "oil-for-food" programme, which lets Baghdad sell oil to buy food and other supplies to ease the human impact of sanctions.

Herald feature: Iraq