BAGHDAD, Dec 3: UN arms inspectors searched one of President Saddam Hussein’s large palace compounds in Baghdad on Tuesday in the biggest test of Iraqi cooperation since inspections for weapons of mass destruction resumed.
As a Dec 8 deadline for Iraq to come clean on whether it has banned weapons approaches, US President George Bush warned Saddam against trying to “deceive” the inspectors and said he was not encouraged by Baghdad’s attitude.
Teams of inspectors entered Al-Sojoud palace, one of several presidential compounds across Iraq, in central Baghdad.
One team, in six white UN cars, drove up to the palace gate, accompanied by Iraqi monitoring officials in a separate vehicle.
The convoy was held up for a few minutes before guards opened the gates and let them onto a road lined with palm trees and leading to a large compound. Other inspectors entered from another gate.
A witness said guards at the entrance were surprised by the UN convoy’s arrival and at first refused to open the gate. Some inspectors left their cars and demanded they be let in.
“Open the gate, we want to come in,” an inspector told the guards. “We can’t, we are waiting for orders,” one guard replied. The inspector protested and a few minutes later the gates were opened.
According to UN security council guidelines, access to sites should be immediate and unfettered.
Journalists were not allowed in and Iraqi guards were visibly uneasy at the unexpected visit. A UN car blocked the black and golden gate at the large entrance. A high wall blocks sight into the compound, which has several buildings and acres of plush gardens.
The inspectors left the compound after one hour and 45 minutes without speaking to journalists.
It was the first presidential palace inspection since the UN experts returned to Baghdad last month armed with a tough security council resolution giving Iraq a last chance to disarm or face a possible invasion, led by the United States.
Inspections of presidential palaces had been a source of confrontation between Iraq and UN inspectors in the 1990s. Both sides agreed on special procedures for the inspections in 1998, a few months before the inspectors pulled out of Iraq for alleged lack of cooperation.
The new UN resolution last month set tough guidelines for the inspections, abolishing special arrangements for the palaces.
UN documents allege Saddam’s eight palace compounds contain more than 1,000 buildings — luxury mansions, smaller guest villas, office complexes, warehouses and garages.
In the previous five days of inspections, UN arms experts so far have found no evidence of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons programmes.
But in a swoop on a suspect site on Monday, they said they had discovered some equipment and several UN monitoring cameras had gone missing from a missile factory.
DEC 8 DEADLINE: Speaking at the Pentagon on Monday, Bush said Iraq must supply a “credible and complete list of its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons by Sunday” — the Dec 8 deadline set by the UN security council.
“Any act of delay, deception or defiance will prove that Saddam Hussein has not adopted the path of compliance and has rejected the path of peace,” Bush told military leaders.
“So far the steps are not encouraging,” Bush said.
He alleged that Iraq recently had fired on US and British planes enforcing the “no-fly” zones in the country and Baghdad had sent letters to the United Nations that he described as “filled with protests and falsehoods”.
In the latest encounter, US and British warplanes attacked targets in the northern “no-fly” zone on Monday _ the second raid in two days against Iraqi air defences.
In his most detailed comments on Iraq since the weapons inspections began last week, Bush made clear Baghdad must come clean by Sunday.
“That declaration must be credible and complete, or the Iraqi dictator will have demonstrated to the world once again that he has chosen not to change his behaviour,” Bush said.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said in an interview in an Iraqi weekly published on Tuesday the United States was trying to blackmail the inspectors by casting doubts over their work.
“The language of disdain used by American officials over the resumption of UN arms inspections aims at blackmailing the work of the inspectors,” Sabri told al-Rafidain.
“Iraq will extend all facilities necessary to enable inspectors do their job properly,” he added.
“ONE MILLION LIES”: An official Iraqi daily dismissed on Tuesday as lies US charges Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction.
“The cursed Bush and his Zionist team are lying one million times a day when they say that Iraq is possessing weapons of mass destruction as if Iraq has nothing to do but to develop such weapons,” Al Iraq said in a front-page editorial.
At the US mission to the United Nations in New York, Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, conferred with chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix on what would happen after Iraq hands over its weapons declaration.
Rice and Blix discussed how to evaluate the declaration, which is expected to arrive at the United Nations at the last minute on Sunday, diplomats said.—Reuters
