IRAQ: The chiefs of the UN weapons inspection effort, Dr Hans Blix and Dr Mohamed El Baradei, wound up yesterday what appears to have been a positive visit to Baghdad.
During a press conference following discussions with the Iraqis, Dr Blix said: "We have come a long way" towards making the inspection process "effective and credible . . . There have been hitches and some of these hitches have been solved today.
"The whole world would prefer a credible disarmament of Iraq through inspections. And the better inspections we have the more credible is this alternative. That is our part of the deal."
Dr El Baradei said the agreement reached during their brief visit to Baghdad "will make our inspections much more effective".
Dr Blix said he expected Iraq to meet its commitments on agreed points. However, he said: "There are, of course, other issues in the air which we have discussed but on which we have not reached firm conclusions."
He would not say that there had been a "breakthrough", but "there have been a number of issues which have come up in the past weeks and we have settled some of them".
The first he mentioned was the question of helicopters. Some flights had to be cancelled into the US-Britain imposed "no-fly zone" because it "was not clear there would be safety".
On the question of the 122 mm missiles found last week, he said he was confident that this issue would be resolved.
Dr Blix said the 3,000 pages of documents found in the home of Dr Faleh Hassan Hamza, an Iraqi scientist, demonstrated that "we must go to private sites".
In response to a question from The Irish Times, Dr El Baradei said these documents related to a programme to use lasers to enrich uranium, which was discontinued in the late 1980s. He said nuclear inspectors had still to determine the importance of these documents and to discover whether Dr Hamza had been authorised to store them in his home.
One of the unresolved problems concerns flights by unmanned U-2 surveillance aircraft. Dr Blix said the Iraqi side had "put a number of conditions which we cannot accept".
Among the other issues which have not been solved is that of taking Iraqi scientists and technicians abroad for interrogation, a key demand of the US. Iraq remains reluctant to permit this but has agreed to encourage them to participate in private sessions with inspectors in the country.
Asked about the interim report which is due to be submitted to the Security Council on January 27th, Dr Blix said: "I haven't written it yet, but there are a number of points which otherwise would have been negative which will now have been turned around."
In response to Dr Blix and Dr El Baradei, Gen Ameer Saadi, head of the Iraqi monitoring agency said: "When we talked we forgot all about threats of war." The discussions were "constructive and cordial" and focused on "practical matters". He said Iraq's aim was to "facilitate the work of the UN".
As far as U-2 surveillance aircraft are concerned, he said: "Iraq had a real problem with the fact that such planes, painted in UN colours but manned by US crews and operating under UN authority, should be given the right to range freely over the entire country."