VIENNA, Sept 12: The head of the UM nuclear watchdog said on Friday he wanted his inspectors to return to Iraq to verify whether Saddam Hussein had renewed his nuclear weapons programme as Washington and London insist he did.

“We still have a mandate under the Security Council. We hope to be able to go back to Iraq to complete our job,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters after the IAEA’s week-long board of governors meeting in Vienna.

UM weapons inspectors returned to Baghdad late last year after an absence of four years to hunt for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Nearly four months of inspections revealed no proof Iraq had developed the massive arsenals of banned weapons that the United States and Britain said it had.

In addition to its mandate under UM Security Council resolutions still in force, the IAEA has the responsibility of verifying Iraq’s compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global pact aimed at halting the spread of atomic weapons.—Reuters