Secret Iraqi Arms Project Reported by U.N. Inspector : Weapons: U.S. woman who led search team cites successes but says Baghdad is still hiding something.

The American woman who led the inspection team in last month’s tense Agriculture Ministry siege in Baghdad said Wednesday that U.N. experts are finally getting to the bottom of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs but that there is “one program” still cloaked in secrecy.

U.S. Army Maj. Karen Jansen, in her first public comments in this country since returning from the 17-day standoff in July, said that enough pieces of the puzzle have been collected to generally depict the kind of weapons program the Baghdad regime has been putting together and how it was being assembled.

As for the one remaining secret program, she said, “I don’t really want to get into that.” Other officials,though, have said that some remaining questions about Iraq’s Scud missiles are cause for concern.

Jansen, addressing a packed room at the National Press Club here, provided a compelling firsthand view of the confrontation at the Agriculture Ministry as U.N. inspectors were denied access to the building and of their grueling work in a city where they are subject to state-sanctioned harassment and intimidation.

While the missions are usually uneventful, it is never hard for the inspectors to tell when they have found the site of sensitive information, said Jansen, a chemical and biological weapons specialist who has ended her assignment as a U.N. inspector.

Iraqi officials are “warm, cordial, businesslike” as long as the inspectors are not getting close to vital findings. When they do, “you see a complete and very quick turn.”

The inspectors, she said, have found weapons and production equipment at sites ranging from petrochemical plants to sugar factories. “I can’t think of a single instance in which they were in a building that said ‘Ballistic Missile Program.’ ”

When the team approached the Agriculture Ministry on July 5, “it became apparent within about half an hour that the Iraqi authorities, at least those who were with us, had a very big problem with this particular site.

“Within about 45 minutes . . . the head of the Iraqi side was quickly replaced by his boss, who was quickly replaced by his boss, in each case telling me: ‘You’re not going to be able to get in to inspect this building. Can’t you just see from the sign that this is the Ministry of Agriculture?’ ”

The standoff followed weeks of propaganda broadcasts on state-controlled television. Two programs were shown repeatedly, one supposedly proving Baghdad’s Persian Gulf War claim that Kuwait is the 19th province of Iraq and one asserting that Americans are deliberately bombing Iraqi wheat fields.

The Iraqis then set out to show that Jansen, as an American military official, wanted access to the Agriculture Ministry to find out where wheat and barley supplies were stored to assist in the bombing campaign.

At the same time, the inspectors were harassed by what she labeled “rent-a-mobs,” women and children “with little paramilitary uniforms” bused in by the government in crowds that sometimes numbered 1,500 to 3,000.

The inspection teams had good relations with their escorts, but when tensions rose, authorities called in state security forces.

“These are the real thugs,” Jansen said. “They’re not too bright. You’re not quite sure what they’re going to do. And when you start seeing them packing side arms, then there is really cause for concern.”

Although the inspectors found nothing when they finally gained access to the ministry, Jansen--who has taken part in six inspection missions and led four--said she suspects that the Iraqis may have removed information, including documents about suppliers for their ballistic missile program.

When she arrived in Iraq 13 months ago, Jansen said, she found the Iraqi people very open about disclosing where weapons were built or hidden. Over the course of the year, however, they have become more disheartened as they have seen Hussein become stronger, she said.

“The (ruling) Baath Party elite, they’re doing fine, they’re still living an incredible lifestyle,” she said. “The very, very poor are also not doing badly because they’ve been subsidized. What is eroding, though, is the middle class.”