UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15: Following Iraq’s acceptance of a tough new UN resolution, weapons inspectors left here on Friday to get ready for the stringent weapons inspections ever.

Dozens of disarmament experts and technicians who are expected to install communications equipment and surveillance cameras, open offices and arrange for transport, plan to arrive in Baghdad on Monday for the first time since 1998.

The chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, who is expected to meet French officials in Paris on Saturday, will then accompany the International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Mohammed El Baradei, to Baghdad on Monday.

The UN officials here said that Blix, responsible for chemical, biological and ballistic missile arms teams, and El Baradei, in charge of nuclear experts, will only be spending a few days in Baghdad.

However, the technicians and other disarmament experts will prepare for about a dozen inspectors, expected to arrive by Nov 25 to prepare for work and make some spot inspections to test Iraq’s cooperation.

The UN weapons inspections team came into action following a lengthy acceptance letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday by Iraq’s foreign minister, a requirement under a resolution adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council.

It gives inspectors the right to go anywhere, any time, and warns Iraq that it will face “serious consequences” if it fails to comply.

Baghdad said it had accepted the UN resolution in order to avoid a war and called the UN security council members “a gang of evil”.

For Iraq a more significant deadline comes on Dec 8, when it has to submit a “full, accurate and complete” declaration of all its programmes and materiel that can be used to develop chemical, biological and nuclear arms and ballistic missiles.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Security Council diplomats are apprehensive that the United States would act unilaterally at the first sign of discrepancies in the declaration.

Annan, who met US President George Bush in Washington on Wednesday, cautioned against any rash action, saying the United States seemed to have a “lower threshold” for going to war against Iraq than other nations.