U.N. arms experts resumed inspections in Iraq after a two-day break Saturday, just hours before the country was due to hand in a declaration on its weapons programs to meet a U.N. deadline. Two teams of inspectors left U.N. headquarters at Canal Hotel in the Iraqi capital accompanied by Iraqi officials and followed by journalists. They visited military and nuclear research facilities south of the capital.

The inspectors, who last month restarted inspections in Iraq for the first time in four years, had suspended work Thursday and Friday for a Muslim festival. They say Iraq has cooperated with searches at 20 suspect sites so far.

Iraq was expected to hand over its weapons declaration, estimated to be about 10,000 pages, to the U.N. inspectors at around 1700 GMT Saturday, a diplomatic source said.

Its planned delivery follows a U.N. Security Council resolution last month setting Sunday as the deadline for Baghdad to give a full account of any past and current programs involving biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

The document is to be flown to Vienna, seat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and to the United Nations in New York.

U.N. Security Council members decided Friday to postpone the release of the huge volume of material for as much as a week to allow U.N. experts to study it. This was to screen it for any military secrets that might help outsiders develop their own doomsday weapons.

The Council's tough November 8 resolution required President Saddam Hussein's Iraq to come clean on its weapons programs or face possible military action by a U.S.-led coalition. The United States accuses Iraq of having banned weapons, but Iraq denies it.

In New York, the document will be given for screening to the U.N. Monitoring and Verification Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, which is headed by chief weapons inspector Hans Blix.

"This will take a little bit of time," said Blix, who gave no date for the release of the declaration.

Diplomats said it could take a week before the 15 Security Council members including the United States are able to get a copy. Others said it might take 10 days to analyze.

MATERIAL TO BE SCANNED

Both UNMOVIC and the IAEA, headed by Mohamed ElBaradei, will scan the material to see which parts should be held from public view and then reproduce it for transmission to council members.

If Baghdad is found to be in "material breach" of U.N. resolution 1441, it could set the stage for a military attack on Iraq by the United States and its allies.

U.S. officials say President Bush's administration was expected to declare Iraq in "material breach" if Baghdad's declaration states it has no weapons of mass destruction.

But the officials say Washington would not cite the breach as an immediate cause for war, instead letting U.N. inspections continue while Bush courts members of a "coalition of the willing" to help strike Iraq if needed.

Iraq states that its arms declaration will describe only "dual use technology," which has both peaceful and military applications.

Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohamed Aldouri, said he had been told "there are new elements in the report" but he did not know what there were. "It is a very huge, a very thick report."

He added: "Iraq is clean of any kind of mass destruction weapons. We provided all information they need."

U.N. arms inspectors must report to the Security Council by January 26. They can flag any Iraqi violations sooner.

RESUMED INSPECTIONS

Saturday, a team of inspectors from UNMOVIC examined a compound housing the al-Quds (Jerusalem) General Company in the town of al- Iskandariyah, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad.

The company is part of Iraq's state Military Industrialisation Commission (MIC). Officials said it focuses mainly on research and it was established after inspectors left Iraq in 1998.

The experts entered the site unhindered, but journalists were kept outside.

IAEA experts drove to al-Tuweitha nuclear facility, 20 km (12 miles) south of Baghdad. IAEA experts had spent five hours at Tuweitha Nuclear Research Center, the main nuclear program site, on December 4. It was not clear why they returned.

The Center, which had been monitored by the IAEA in the past, has housed several research reactors and included activities such as plutonium separation and waste processing, uranium metallurgy, neutron initiator development and work on a number of methods of uranium enrichment.

Tuweitha is the location of the Osirak reactor bombed by Israel in 1981. Several tons of uranium have been under seal by the IAEA at Tuweitha since 1998.

U.S. officials have urged Blix to carry out inspections more aggressively and to use part of the U.N. resolution to spirit Iraqi scientists out of the country for interviews.

Saying he was aware inspectors had this power, Blix said on Friday: "We will get back to that when we are ready for it. ... We are not going to abduct anyone."

Apparently preparing for war, the Pentagon appears worried that the inspection timetable might not coincide with a plans for a possible attack against Iraq, diplomats said.

But Council members, including Britain, have made clear that an effort to make inspections work is required before they would join any military action.

U.N. sources in Iraq said 30 arms experts would arrive in Baghdad Sunday to add to the 17 already conducting probes.

PHOTO CAPTION

Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Blix (L) and Colombian Ambassador to the U.N. Alfonso Valdivieso speak about the Security Council meeting after discussing the latest information on Iraq, December 6, 2002. The United Nations will delay release of Iraq's crucial weapons declaration for as much as a week until U.N. arms inspectors and nuclear experts have had a chance to screen the mammoth document. (Chip East/Reuter