VIENNA, April 8: Any alleged weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq must be verified by United Nations agencies to ensure credibility, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog body said Tuesday.

“Any weapons on mass destruction found in Iraq will have to be verified by the United Nations verification organisations in order to generate the required credibility,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

AIEA specialists were among UN investigators who carried out searches for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before being evacuated two days before the war on Iraq began.

US defence officials said on Monday that preliminary tests had detected chemical warfare agents at a military facility in central Iraq, which if confirmed would mark the first discovery of weapons of mass destruction in the 19-day war against Iraq.

“Subject to the guidance of the UN Security Council, weapons inspectors should return to Iraq to resume their mandate as soon as the conflict is ended,” ElBaradei said.

US media have reported that the United States intends to go on searching in coming months for weapons of mass destruction without UN inspectors who have been mandated by the Security Council to perform the task.

Last week ElBaradei said the IAEA was “the sole body with legal authority to verify Iraq’s nuclear disarmament.”

His comments came after the New York Times said Washington had set up special military units to seek out the weapons of mass destruction it accuses Iraq of developing.

Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspection team responsible for verifying whether Iraq possesses any banned chemical and biological arms, said earlier that the US and London were trying to recruit his inspectors to work on a unilateral weapons search programme.

The inspection teams led by ElBaradei and Blix were evacuated from Iraq two days before the US-British invasion of Iraq, less than four months into the verification mission the United Nations Security Council had asked them to undertake. —AFP