UN: The United Nations top nuclear weapons inspector said in Vienna yesterday his team was bristling with information on where to seek for signs of a clandestine atomic weapons programme in Iraq.
Inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) left Iraq in December 1998, only hours before the United States and Britain began bombing.
Iraq agreed this week to the unconditional return of the UN arms inspectors. But inspections are not likely to be straightforward. Inspectors will need weeks if not months to start their search for weapons of mass destruction, diplomats said in Baghdad.
A diplomat familiar with UN inspections before they ended nearly four years ago said the new team would need to conduct a series of meetings with their Iraqi counterparts to discuss how and when the search for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons could begin. Iraq denies it has such weapons.
The head of the IAEA's Iraq Action Team, Mr Jacques Baute, said the four-year hiatus - during which detection technology and analytical tools and software have improved dramatically - had not been wasted time.
Mr Baute said there were suspicious locations that would be examined.
"We've been using satellite imagery for more than two years, and we've registered some changes," he said, adding that they would need on-site inspections to determine whether specific facilities had been used for making nuclear weapons.
Mr Baute said he had no idea when the Security Council would give them the green light to return to Iraq.
The Russian Defence Minister, Mr Sergei Ivanov, said in Washington yesterday that UN arms inspectors can "easily determine" whether Iraq is pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
"It's not a question of trust or mistrust. It's a question of facts," he said ahead of talks with the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld.
Once the approval from the Security Council arrives, Mr Baute and his men can be on the ground almost immediately. But it would take several months before they could begin presenting a coherent picture of any hidden nuclear weapons programme.
If all went well, the two arms inspection teams could recommend lifting UN sanctions within a year's time.