More Iraqi sites inspected

UN experts inspected an animal vaccine production lab and an active munitions factory near Baghdad yesterday, the second day of a hunt for suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The inspections proceeded mainly smoothly, just as they did on Wednesday when the weapons inspectors resumed work in Iraq after a four-year gap.

But taking no chances the inspectors ordered electronic debugging equipment to make sure the Iraqi authorities were not eavesdropping on their headquarters.

Russia expressed satisfaction at the "successful start" of the inspections and hailed the "mood of constructive cooperation" between Iraq and the United Nations experts.

An Iraqi military spokesman said US and British planes patrolling a "no-fly" in northern Iraq bombed civilian targets in Nineveh province, killing one civilian. There was no immediate word from Washington or London on the report.

The United States has threatened a military assault on Iraq if President Saddam Hussein obstructed the inspections. Iraq has denied possessing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction, a stance Washington has questioned.

Two teams of inspectors accompanied by Iraqi officials spent several hours in both facilities, talking to employees, checking equipment and taking samples.

A group of inspectors spent four hours at a foot and mouth vaccination laboratory in the Dora area south of Baghdad. The once government-run facility has been defunct since weapons inspectors dismantled its equipment in 1996.

Another team spent little over three hours at Nasr (Victory) complex in the Taji area, some 25 kilometres north of the capital, where there are factories producing light conventional ammunition and heavy civilian machinery.

The two facilities had been mentioned by the United States in recent months as sites suspected of producing banned weapons.

At the Dora facility, the inspectors noticed that some equipment was missing, and were told by the Iraqis that they had been moved to another facility a month ago. When they demanded to see that facility, they were driven there by the Iraqi minders after they finished inspecting the Dora facility.

"They took them from Dora to Taji, where the IAEA team went, it's small equipment, simple equipment but it should not have left," said Dimitri Perricos, head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) team.

"If they move equipment to another facility they have an obligation to report that," Perricos added in a press briefing. "The important thing is that when we told them we want to follow up the equipment, they did not object."

Journalists in dozens of cars were involved in hot pursuit of the inspection teams. They followed the teams to the sites in high-speed car chases, but Iraqi guards again stopped them from entering the facilities.

No inspections are planned for today, the Muslim weekend. The inspectors visited three sites outside Baghdad on Wednesday - a military-run heavy machinery workshop, a graphite factory and a missile site.

The inspectors will get electronic equipment to make sure that their operations centre in Baghdad has not been bugged during their four-year absence, UN sources said yesterday.

"There is no proof that there is anything there but after four-years who knows," the source said.

Several UN missions, including the arms team, are based at the three-storey Canal Hotel in the Iraqi capital. The top floor is the operations centre for the inspectors.

"The problem is that nobody knows if the facility is compromised," the source said. "Before you trust it you have to be sure that you measure with technical means that nothing has been planted."

Bug sweepers will be brought in over the weekend. Witnesses said the inspectors took swab samples from water tanks, the air ventilation system and equipment at the facility. They also checked on four cameras left by previous inspection teams, as well as motion detectors, and these were found to be "dead", Perricos said.

Jacques Baute, who heads the inspections team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which visited Taji, said the facility houses plants with a potential "dual-use" capability which could be used to support a weapons programme.

"We went through every significant technical building," Baute said. "So overall, the results of the inspection is as expected in terms of identifying what we wanted to identify."

The Iraqi state-run press was not impressed by the resumption of inspections.

Newspapers gave little coverage to the inspectors work, while blaming the United States for the failure of the previous inspection regime.