UN inspectors in Iraq travel to site of rocket warheads to conduct further analysis

As the probe for illegal weapons in Iraq continued today, United Nations inspectors travelled to the site where four rocket warheads were recently found to conduct further analysis.

According to a spokesman for the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a multidisciplinary team went to the location of the four 122mm rocket warheads that had been found over the weekend by Iraq. “The inspectors examined, X-rayed and tagged the warheads,” Hiro Ueki said in Baghdad. “The bunker containing them was sealed.”

Meanwhile, an UNMOVIC team of missile inspectors went to Al Mutaseem to observe a static test of a solid propellant Al Fatah motor, which Iraq plans to use in its ground-to-ground Al Fatah missile system. Another missile team travelled to the Shahiyat Test Facility, about 100 kilometres north of Baghdad, to verify that this site was still abandoned, Mr. Ueki noted.

A chemical team returned to the Al Qa Qaa complex and inspected some units producing chemicals, such as propellant stabilizers, using a portable analytical instrument and a metal analyzing instrument.

At the College of Agriculture at Baghdad University in Abu Ghraib, an UNMOVIC biological team verified the tagged equipment. Another biological team inspected the Agricultural Research Centre (IPA), also located in Abu Ghraib, which undertakes research in such areas as plant diseases, development of disease resistant plants and soil improvement.

In Mosul a multidisciplinary team inspected a lime production facility.

As for the IAEA, inspectors visited the Tuwaitha site to conduct a motorized radiation survey, check sealed equipment and inspect buildings, Mr. Ueki said.