2 Teams Report No Problems in Weapons Inspections of Iraq

A U.N. team of biological weapons experts Saturday renewed the search for Iraqi arms that may have gone undetected on earlier missions.

Another nuclear inspection team left for Vienna after spending a week measuring material at an Iraqi facility near Baghdad.

Officials said there were no reports of problems from either team despite demands that Baghdad allow U.N. helicopters to make surprise inspection flights.

President Bush has threatened to send U.S. aircraft to protect the U.N. helicopters if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein refuses to cooperate, raising the possibility of renewed hostilities.

U.N. Security Council President Jean-Bernard Merimee said he will meet today with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein Khudayer in New York to receive Baghdad’s decision. Merimee and other Security Council members have demanded a written and unconditional reply.

The inspection teams are part of the U.N. Special Committee, in charge of dismantling Iraqi nuclear and biological weapons.

U.N. officials say Iraq has failed to cooperate with earlier inspections and has reported fewer missiles and chemical warheads than U.N. teams have found. Teams also found nuclear processing equipment the Iraqis denied having.

Alastair Livingston, a spokesman for the committee in Bahrain, said he had been in radio contact Saturday with the liaison officer for the biological inspection team and had been told that “everything was fine, no problems.”

The 13-member team is examining biological research labs to check Iraqi claims that the research is not for military purposes.

Another inspection team, representing the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, will go to Baghdad today.

The United States and other nations warned Iraq on Wednesday that military force might be used to escort the U.N. teams if Iraq does not cooperate in the effort to find and destroy all of its long-range missiles and any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Iraq insisted it is cooperating as required under the Gulf War cease-fire agreement. It accused Washington of using a dispute over whether U.N. teams can fly their own helicopters as an excuse to launch another military campaign.