Iraq criticized the U.N. Security Council on Thursday for adopting a U.S.-backed resolution that tightens controls on imports to Iraq, saying the measure would inflict "deliberate damage and harm to our people." The resolution, passed Monday by a 13-0 vote with Russia and Syria abstaining, puts new limits on purchases of certain communications equipment and antibiotics which the United States and Britain said could be used by the Iraqi military in a war.

Washington and London have threatened to use military force against Iraq unless President Saddam Hussein's regime provides evidence it has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions adopted at the time of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the subsequent Gulf War .

U.N. arms experts have been in the country for more than a month inspecting sites to determine whether Iraq still has chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Inspection officials have said Iraq's report on its weapons programs was not yet complete, and the United States has accused Saddam's regime of continuing to hide banned weapons.

Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, accused the United States on Thursday of going ahead with plans for war without awaiting the weapons inspectors' report on their findings.

"Despite the presence of the inspectors, U.S. aircraft carriers are heading to the region and U.S. and British soldiers are arriving and making preparations," he told a visiting Spanish delegation.

Iraq's criticism of the Security Council resolution came in editorials in the state-run press which is regularly used to express the government's views. The daily Al-Jumhuriya said the resolution, which deals with goods Iraq can import under the U.N. oil for food program, is new evidence of Washington's "hegemony" over the Security Council.

"This is a bad resolution which would lead to inflicting a deliberate damage and harm to our people," the paper said.

It said the members of the Security Council should "fulfill their responsibility, stand against the obvious U.S. domination of the council and ... foil the mad U.S. attempts to wage aggression on Iraq under the cover of the Security Council."

The daily Babil, which is owned by Saddam's son Odai, said the resolution is particularly disappointing because it came "when the Security Council is supposed to prepare the appropriate circumstances to lift the sanctions on Iraq and as the (U.N.) inspection teams are preparing to declare that Iraq is clear of weapons of mass destruction."

While the inspectors on the ground have offered no conclusions about their daily searches of military and commercial sites, Iraqi officials have said after virtually every inspection that the U.N. arms experts had found nothing illegal.

Aziz repeated the assertion Thursday and said he hoped the chief of the inspectors, Hans Blix, would declare the inspectors found no banned arms in a crucial report to the Security Council due at the end of the month.

"They came in search for weapons of mass destruction and they did not find any weapons," he said. "They demanded full cooperation and we provided them with such cooperation and we hope they will say so. Yet, we do not know what they are going to say," Aziz said.

On Thursday, inspectors visited Iraqi air force warehouses 30 miles north of Baghdad and the Ibn Firnas State Company, 11 miles northwest of the city, which makes drones for the air force.

They also made a return visit to the Al Fat'h military industry site 18 miles west of Baghdad. They did not say why they returned to the facility, which conducts research and development on missiles and rockets.

On Wednesday, inspectors searched another missile maintenance workshop, a repair shop for heavy trucks and returned for another search of a brewery and a 7UP bottling plant.

Also Wednesday, U.S. and British warplanes attacked an Iraqi mobile radar system in the southern no-fly zone, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The radar near al-Qurnah, about 240 miles southeast of Baghdad, was a threat to coalition aircraft, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement on its Web site.

The official Iraqi News Agency said the planes attacked civilian installations, killing one person and wounding two others. The U.S. statement made no mention of casualties.

No-fly zones were set up in the north and south of Iraq after the Gulf War to protect minority Kurds and Shiite Muslims who revolted unsuccessfully against Saddam's government.

Iraq maintains the no-fly zones are an illegal interference with its sovereignty, and it regularly challenges the U.S. and British aircraft that patrol the zones. The allied aircraft frequently fire back at Iraqi targets.

Wednesday air strike was the first of the new year. U.S. or British planes carried out strikes on 80 days during 2002.

PHOTO CAPTION

Unidentified U.N. weapons inspectors walk past the al-Magd company storehouse before touring the site as part of their mission to search for banned weapons in Iraq, in Baghdad Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2003. The inspectors continued their work on the first day of the new year. (AP Photo/Jassim Mohammed)