U.N. Weapons Inspectors’ Surprise Searches Irk Iraq

U.N. inspection teams launched a series of surprise searches Tuesday for banned Iraqi weapons despite angry assertions from Baghdad that the searches amount to harassment.

“We are undertaking a very intensive schedule,” said Caroline Cross, the spokeswoman in Baghdad for the United Nations Special Commission, which oversees the inspections. “We have several teams in town. We need to test Iraq’s pledge to comply.”

The official Iraqi News Agency said nine arms monitoring groups, two biological warfare teams and a missile unit conducted 32 searches, using helicopters and vehicles.

Baghdad did not hide its anger as the inspectors stepped up their probe. State-run newspapers quoted Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, who was visiting Moscow, as saying there was a limit to Iraq’s compliance.

Iraq has been cooperating with U.N. inspectors for more than seven years but has yet to see an end to economic sanctions, Aziz was quoted as saying. “This situation is no longer acceptable,” he said.

The sanctions, imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, cannot be lifted until the inspectors certify that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.

About 140 U.N. weapons experts are stationed in Baghdad, in addition “to several visiting teams,” Cross said.

The inspectors resumed their work last month after a nearly three-month period during which Iraq had banned them from visiting any new suspected weapons sites. Iraq reversed that ban and pledged full cooperation Nov. 14, as the U.S. and Britain were preparing to launch military strikes.

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler said the unannounced checks will finish late this week or early next week.