UN Inspectors Search Saddam's Palace for Banned Weapons

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 04, 2002

UN Inspectors Search Saddam's Palace for Banned Weapons

UN weapons inspectors on Tuesday made an unannounced visit to one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces for the first time since they resumed inspections last week after four years of suspension.

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UN weapons inspectors on Tuesday made an unannounced visit to one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces for the first time since they resumed inspections last week after four years of suspension.

Two teams of the inspectors spent about one and a half hours at al-Sojoud palace and left the huge compound without making any comments.

An Iraqi official accompanying the UN inspectors told reporters that the arms experts had went into all the buildings in the presidential site.

After the inspectors' departure, journalists were granted a rare opportunity to pay a brief visit to the compound, including the main hall of a spectacular castle-like three-storeyed building.

One of the teams swooped on the site around 8:50 a.m. local time(0550 GMT) in the Karkh district in central Baghdad.

The inspectors, in six white four-wheel-drive cars with the "UN" initials, were accompanied by officials from Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate in separate vehicles.

The inspection team asked the guards to open the gates. The guards went to ask authorization and returned to open the gates several minutes later.

A second group of UN arms experts reportedly entered the same palace through another gate.

In order to "freeze" the movements within the site, the inspection team parked a UN car just outside the entrance to the compound, but no one was left in the vehicle.

Journalists were not allowed to enter the presidential palace while the inspections were underway.

Al-Sojoud palace is one of the three presidential palaces of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

Because of the sensitive nature of sovereignty, Baghdad confronted with UN inspectors over the arms check at the country's top residence in 1998.

The consequences were the withdrawal of UN weapons inspectors in December of the year and the following US-led air war on Iraq.

Baghdad had never since allowed UN arms inspectors back to Iraq until Nov. 25 this year.

Inspectors entered their sixth day of searches for weapons of mass destruction.

On Monday, they visited a research center for missile technology and three alcohol plants in their fifth-day inspection in Iraq.

After the inspection, they delivered a statement reporting the missing of some equipment tagged by previous inspectors in the Waziriya site, which had been monitored before December 1998.

Iraq is bracing for its first real test on Dec. 8, when it is obliged to submit a full account of its weapons programs under UN Security Council Resolution 1441, although it insists it has no biological, chemical or nuclear arms.

"Further material breach" of Iraq's obligations would incur "serious consequences," the UN document adopted on Nov. 8 warned.

By Jan. 27, the inspectors must give their first report to the UN Security Council.

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