IRAQ: United Nations weapons inspectors said Iraq provided full co-operation yesterday when they visited sites near Baghdad to hunt for illegal weapons.
In the first inspections for four years, the UN team spread out, making surprise searches of a missile-production site and an industrial complex previously suspected of involvement in the development of nuclear weapons.
One of the leaders of the inspection teams said the speedy access they were given by the Iraqis and the general willingness to co-operate was a good sign.
The head of the inspections team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mr Jacques Baute, said: "We have not sensed anything which obstructed us. We were welcomed in a polite and professional manner and we were able to do the job. That's good enough for us."
The first day of inspections was accompanied by farcical scenes, mainly a result of car chases by journalists trying to keep up with the UN convoy. Two of the 50 cars carrying journalists collided head-on. At one point, the combination of UN convoys, journalists and Iraqi monitors created an hour-long jam.
The inspections were carried out by Unmovic, the New York-based UN monitoring, verification and inspection commission, which is hunting for chemical and biological weapons and for missiles with a range of more than 150 km; and a team from the Vienna-based IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is hunting for signs that Iraq is seeking to build nuclear weapons.
Iraq claims it has no so-called weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological or nuclear - but the US and Britain insist it has.
The inspectors, who arrived in Baghdad on Monday, left their headquarters in the capital early in the morning and split into teams, heading in opposite directions.
They were spotted by journalists at various locations, wandering around the suspect sites, wearing the blue baseball caps of the UN and making notes on clipboards.
As well as the surroundings, they investigated documents at the sites.
One team spent three hours at the al-Tahadi military-industrial compound east of Baghdad, and another drove to the Saddam general headquarters, a small industrial complex near Ramadi, north-west of Baghdad. The al-Rafah missile testing site and a graphite factory near al-Ammriyyeh, west of Baghdad, were also visited.
The leader of the Unmovic team, Mr Dimitri Perricos, told reporters: "As far as we are concerned, we were able to carry out the activities that we had planned to carry out. You witnessed the immediateness of the access, and that's a good sign and consistent with the commitment we heard earlier."
The head of the al-Tahadi compound, Mr Haitham Mahmoud,said: "They had questions and we replied to all of them, and there were not any problems." He said the complex was simply a workshop to maintain pumps and machinery.
A large portrait of President Saddam Hussein with the slogan "God preserve Iraq and Saddam" stood by the entrance to al-Tahadi.
The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, asked by France's Europe 1 radio about the inspectors' mission, said: "I think it got off to a rather good start."
The UN team spent five hours at the al-Rafah missile base to check whether Iraq had built missiles with a range exceeding 150 km.
The Iraqis say the structure is used only for permitted shorter-range missile engines.
The director of the al-Rafah centre, Mr Ali Jassam Hussein, told reporters who were allowed in afterwards: "They didn't find anything because we don't have anything illegal."
On Radio Cairo yesterday, Iraq's ambassador to the UN, Mr Muhammad Al-Douri, said: "Iraq is not afraid of the inspectors' work because it has nothing to hide, but Iraq fears that some of the inspectors will misuse their authority and make trouble that the United States will use to strike Iraq."
An air raid siren wailed in Baghdad hours after the inspections began. Baghdad is outside the no-fly zone imposed by US and British aircraft, which, theoretically, should not be flying over the capital. Such sirens, common elsewhere, are rare in Baghdad.
The Iraqi civil defence authority said US or British aircraft had flown over the capital. Both Washington and London denied this.