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UN arms inspectors visit missile installations, manufacturing plants in Iraq

UN arms inspectors visit missile installations, manufacturing plants in Iraq

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United Nations monitors continued their probe in Iraq today with visits to missile installations and other sites.

According to a spokesman for the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a missile team – accompanied by members of the chemical team – flew by helicopter to the Az Zubayr Naval Complex, 300 kilometres south of Baghdad. A second missile team, meanwhile, witnessed a static test of the Al Samoud missile engine at the Al Rafah Liquid Engine Test Facility.

A second UNMOVIC chemical team also went to the Al Majd Centre in Amiriyah, which is principally a store but also produces simple equipment with simple machine tools at the side. “The team used a metal analyzer to check sheets of alloy at the site,” UN spokesman Hiro Ueki said in Baghdad.

IAEA teams also performed inspections today, with the first visiting the Al Sumood industrial manufacturing plant in the Taji area north of Baghdad as a second performed a motorized radiation survey in the Taji area. That team later joined the first at Al Sumood and carried out a manual radiation survey of buildings and stores.

A third IAEA team inspected the Al Kindi Research and Development Company near Mosul and the North Refinery Company (NRC) in the Baji area, en route to Baghdad.