U.N. Visits Missile Fuel Factory, Plant

10/01/2003| IslamWeb

U.N. experts on Friday inspected a pharmaceutical plant and made a return visit to a missile fuel factory, one day after U.N. officials told the Security Council that Baghdad must do more to prove that it is free of weapons of mass destruction. Bad weather prevented inspectors from visiting other undisclosed sites outside the capital for a second straight day.

U.N. inspectors returned for a third visit this month to the Al-Mamoun missile propellant factory 40 miles south of Baghdad, the Information Ministry said in a statement.

Other team members wearing white protective suits and carrying masks inspected a state pharmaceutical company in Baghdad and two state-run stores in the capital, the ministry said. The stores, Al-Dabash and Al-Adil, sell foodstuffs, electrical appliances and construction materials.

Neither the Iraqi government nor the inspectors made any comment about what the inspectors saw there.

U.N. resolutions prohibit Iraq from maintaining missiles with a range of more than 90 miles, and the visit to the propellant factory may have been aimed at determining whether Iraq was violating that restriction.

Inspectors also planned to travel by helicopter to undisclosed sites outside the capital, but bad weather scrubbed the mission. Dense fog prevented the inspectors from using their helicopters Thursday.

The teams are attempting to determine whether Iraq still holds weapons of mass destruction in violation of U.N. resolutions approved following Baghdad's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War . The United States and Britain insist Iraq still holds such weapons, despite Iraqi denials.

President Bush  has threatened to disarm Iraq by force if necessary, and thousands of U.S. and British troops are streaming into the Gulf to back up that threat.

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer  said in Washington on Thursday.

Iraq maintains that the United States has fabricated allegations against President Saddam Hussein's government to justify a new war to seize control of its extensive oil resources. Iraq remains defiant in the face of a possible war.

"May God kill the Americans, rock the earth beneath them and sow divisions among them," said Abdel-Ghafour al-Qaisi, a preacher at Baghdad's Mother of all Battles mosque, in a sermon that was broadcast live on state television Friday. "God will never allow that infidel tyranny (the United States) from controlling this pious nation. Victory will be on Iraq's side."

In a briefing to the Security Council on Thursday, chief inspector Hans Blix and the head of the U.N. nuclear control agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said they have found no conclusive evidence that Iraq is still hiding illegal weapons.

However, Blix said the Iraqis must do more to prove they have no banned weapons. Otherwise, he said inspectors will not be able to report to the council that the country is weapons free - the key to suspending and ultimately lifting sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Blix and ElBaradei plan to fly to Baghdad on Jan. 19-20 to tell senior officials they must provide "credible evidence" about Iraq's nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs. The U.N. inspectors also want Iraq to provide more information about scientists who worked in the armaments industry and answer questions on outstanding issues ranging from anthrax production to missing high explosives.

PHOTO CAPTION

A U.N. weapons inspector wearing chemical suit check his collegue's mask inside the State Company for Drugs and Medical Supplies in Baghdad, Friday, Jan. 10, 2003. President Saddam Hussein's science adviser Amir al-Saadi disputed charges that Iraq's arms report was incomplete.(AP Photo/Hussein Mall