Scores of UN arms teams combed six Iraqi sites for possible chemical, biological or nuclear weapons today, a day after carrying out a record 16 inspections.
Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) drove to al-Tuweitha compound, the main site of Iraq's nuclear programme. The large facility, 20 kilometres south of Baghdad, has been inspected repeatedly in recent weeks.
Teams from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) went to at least three other sites, Iraqi officials said.
One group went to the Ibn Bitar research centre some 10 kilometres north of the capital, they said. The facility belongs to the Ministry of Industry and Minerals.
Mr Fares Abdul Kareem, head of the Ibn Bitar research centre, told reporters: "We are not producing anything related to the production of chemical or biological weapons. We are producing veterinary drugs for the treatment of animals."
Another UNMOVIC team inspected a pesticide factory known as Fallujah-3, 90 kilometres northwest of Baghdad. Fallujah-3 was thought to have been linked to VX gas. It was heavily bombed while under construction during the 1991 Gulf War.
A spokesman for the inspectors in Baghdad, Mr Hiro Ueki, said an UNMOVIC team of missile inspectors went to an Iraqi army base far south of Baghdad, where they started tagging Iraq's ground- to-ground solid propellant Al Fatah rockets.
"The remaining Al Fatah rockets, now in the possession of the Iraqi Army, will be tagged in the course of this week," Mr Ueki said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. The UN teams tag, or mark, equipment they have inspected for future reference.
In an Army Day speech, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein issued his first public criticism of the inspections, saying UN teams were carrying out intelligence work.
Yesterday UN arms inspectors paid a surprise visit to the complex housing Iraq's own weapons Monitoring Directorate (IMD), trapping Baghdad's UN envoy and a senior official inside for several hours.