January 17, 2003	Friday	Ziqa'ad 13, 1423

BAGHDAD, Jan 16: UN arms experts paid surprise visits to the homes of two Iraqi scientists in Baghdad on Thursday, in their first foray into private residential quarters in search of banned Iraqi weapons.

On the eve of the 12th anniversary of the 1991 invasion, witnesses said an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team arrived unannounced in Baghdad’s Ghazaliyeh neighbourhood, blocked a street and headed to the houses of scientists Faleh Hassan and Shaker al-Jabouri.

Inspectors interviewed the two men, who are neighbours, and searched their homes from top to bottom.

“This is a provocative act...to hurt Iraq,” a visibly upset Jabouri said after the inspection. “They did not leave any piece in the house unturned. They searched every corner including personal possessions, furniture and even the mattresses...

“They searched my personal office, the bedroom, bathrooms...and refrigerator,” he said. His children were terrorised by the inspectors’ “police action”, he added.

Jabouri said he was a nuclear scientist but he denied any involvement in Iraq’s past nuclear weapons programmes.

He said the experts, who spent two hours in the house but much longer in its vicinity, asked him personal questions including where he studied.

Witnesses said Hassan, a physicist, refused to hand over documents to inspectors at his house, but after long discussion agreed to go with them to the Iraqi national monitoring directorate to have the papers copied and given to the experts. Hassan and the inspectors did not speak to reporters.—Reuters