U.N. Teams Meet No Resistance Inspecting Iraqi Nuclear Sites
U.N. experts inspected nuclear and missile sites, destroyed chemicals and took aerial photographs Wednesday, saying that their mission--the first during the Clinton presidency--was proceeding without hindrance.
The nuclear and ballistic experts were conducting a second day of inspections, a process that includes talks on long-term monitoring to stop Iraq’s rebuilding weapons of mass destruction.
“We have been able to do everything we wanted to do so far,” said Douglas Englund, of the U.N. Special Commission implementing the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire resolution.
“It’s just kind of incremental. Getting on with it.”
Englund is coordinating the work in Baghdad of the Special Commission to ensure that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are eliminated.
The inspections are the first test of Iraq’s compliance with Security Council resolutions since the Jan. 20 arrival of President Clinton at the White House.
Iraq earlier had a series of stand-offs with U.N. teams dismantling its weapons of mass destruction. Individual members were harassed at their hotels and in the street. An Iraqi ban on U.N. flights delayed by two weeks the return of U.N. staff members after their Christmas and New Year break.
But the head of the U.N. aerial inspection team told reporters he has had no problems since returning to Iraq last week.
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