UN nuclear experts arrived in Iraq today for the first time since the war that toppled Saddam Hussein to begin a two-week mission to inspect Iraq's largest nuclear facility.
The scientists from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will assess what may have been looted from the plant in the aftermath of the war but will have no role in the hunt for Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
Controversy has been raging over whether the United States and Britain fudged the data to back up their claims about those weapons, which were cited as the main reason for the war but have not been found inside the country.
The seven-person IAEA team will instead examine the Tuwaitha nuclear plant outside Baghdad, where there are fears nearby residents may have been contaminated by radioactive materials after the site was looted.
Another huge worry is that radioactive material has fallen into the hands of terrorists.
It is the first time UN monitors have been inside Iraq since they pulled out of the country nearly three months ago in the run-up to the war.
"The purpose of our mission is to ... establish what materials have been removed and what remains, and to secure what remains," team leader Mr Brian Rens told reporters.
He insisted that the two-week deadline laid down by the Pentagon for the visit was "flexible" but gave no indication of how long the experts expected to stay in the country.
The United States was opposed to the return of the IAEA, which previously monitored Saddam's nuclear programme, after it went to war without the support of the UN Security Council.
AFP