Inspectors enter one of Hussein's palaces
Posted on 12/03/2002 2:45:19 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Inspectors enter one of Hussein's palaces
U.N. team makes unannounced visit in search for weapons
12/03/2002
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.N. weapons inspectors made their first unannounced visit to one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces early Tuesday in a test of new powers to search for weapons of mass destruction anywhere, anytime.
After seven minutes of discussion, the huge gates were opened at the west Baghdad complex, one of many presidential palaces in Iraq, and a half-dozen U.N vehicles entered.
The Iraqis have until Sunday to disclose details of their chemical, biological and nuclear programs, but they have been insisting that the country is free of weapons of mass destruction.
A dispute over Mr. Hussein's vast presidential palaces contributed to the breakdown in the U.N. inspections regime in December 1998.
The Iraqis had obstructed visits to a few compounds they designated sensitive, until a compromise arrangement allowed inspections with notification and a diplomatic escort.
The new U.N. Security Council resolution ignores those arrangements and demands full, unfettered access to all sites.
On Monday, inspectors searched the Karama ballistic design plant - their longest search yet - looking for signs of outlawed Iraqi missiles.
After six hours in the well-guarded Baghdad compound, they departed, and the plant's deputy director said all went well.
"They didn't find anything," Brig. Mohammed Salah told reporters.
The inspectors, as usual, had no immediate comment. But a U.N. report later Monday said some equipment of interest at Karama was missing. The Iraqis said some of the missing equipment had been destroyed in U.S. air attacks and some had been transferred.
It was the fifth day of renewed arms inspections after a four-year break. Until Monday, the longest inspections had been running about four hours, some much shorter.
The inspections come under a new Security Council mandate requiring Iraq to shut down any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs as well as any facilities to build missiles with more than the 90-mile range allowed under U.N. resolutions after the 1991 Gulf War.
A second U.N. team, of nuclear inspectors, visited industrial sites north of Baghdad on Monday.
Inspectors in the 1990s eliminated tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and the equipment to make them, dismantled Iraq's effort to build nuclear bombs, and destroyed scores of longer-range Iraqi missiles.
Those inspectors didn't believe they found all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, however.
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Let's see what happens when the TV cameras go away.
This alone is enough of a material violation for the dogs of war to be let slip.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
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